windows 2000 pro will not boot up

dood/doodettes, please give me your solution to this. I am not a nerd so. ... Last night my daughter left here machine logged onto the net, all night!!! This morning the screen had many colors and lines all over it, like it had toasted last night. This morning windows would not boot. After Ctrl/Alt/Del it looks like it will boot, you know with Dell Energy logo and all ... but then it stops. As far as it gets is this:

Intell III 550EMHz
192 MB SystemRam
Keyboard .................Detected
Usblegacy ................Enabled

(at this opoint it stops) There is no progress bar at the bottom, like it is really booting.

The next thing that happens is:

Invalid Boot Diskette
Insert BOOT diskette in A:

So how do I fix this, I have the Windows 2000 Pro Installation disk, do I start there or what? I think there is something call Recover ... what do I do??

Gig 'Em

 

That doesn't look good.

It would appear that your system isn't detecting your hard drive or cd drive. First thing I would do is open the case and make sure all the connectors are still firmly in place. Then I would go into the BIOS setup and check to see if your HDD detects there.

Did you happen to have a thunderstorm last night?

 

No thunderstorm! But I have not check to make sure that HD is connected as you said.
First ... can't I bbot from the Windows 2000 Pro CD?? How do I do that? I put it in the CDROM Drive but nothing happened! Do I have to go into set up or what??

Thank you so much for your help!

 

You need to do that.

In BIOS, make sure your Primary IDE is set to 'Auto', 'Auto Detect' or similar wording, and find the Boot Order and set it to boot from the HDD first.

 

Okay I did that! I still get the same result as first explained.
Intell III 550EMHz
192 MB SystemRam
Keyboard .................Detected
Usblegacy ................Enabled


So does that mean that HD is fried???




I guess I will be forced to open the case now, to check connections. However, how can that be ... no one messes with this machine!

 

Not necessarily, but it's very possible.

When you do that, check that the HDD spins up when you power on. Cables are known to go bad, do you have another you can try?

 

Thanks to da chichen and Major Geek I have found the problem!! A bad conenection SOMEWHERE!!

I pushed and pulled and disconnected and reconnected as many plugs as i could get to. The problem went away but returned in short time (hour). So did it all again. So far it's still up.

Is there any hardware or sftware avaiable to trace down bad connects or cables.? Do i just have to replace all one at a time untill it's solved or what??

I think it is related to the monitor since the montoir is all colored horizontal lines.

Thank you all gerat site! I am sure that I will be back!!

Gig 'Em Whoop!

 

It would probably help if next time it happens, you try each cable one at a time and then you should be able to determine which one is actually causing the problem and replace that one rather than start replacing all of them

But hey if moneys no object replace them all