Question

Windows 2000 Pro on Compaq Armada M700 Boot Up Failure

Compaq Armada M700, Boot failure, Windows 2000

Hi: I have a Win 2K work laptop at home that has never had a problem until this morning. Machine is updated and clean, as far as I know. After normal shutdown last night, boot up this morning failed as follows: I powered it up, got the usual screens (e.g., F8 for options, etc., Windows is starting up, applying security policy, Ctrl+Alt+Del to begin, entered User name and password as usual, click OK, Loading your personal settings, applying your personal settings, screen clears as usual, Win 2K startup music snippet plays, AND THEN, instead of seeing the Desktop and the usual start up, the music plays again, almost immediately, followed up Saving your personal settings, and then back to invitation to go ctrl+alt+del to enter user name and password. Have gone into all Safe Modes, same thing. Have gone into BIOS, don't see anything. Don't have a CD drive in this machine, nor any Windows disks or other materials. Won't be able to get support from office tech group until Tuesday (tomorrow). After looking at this for quite some time today, it occurs to me that the thing is looping through some kind of shutdown and implicit restart request. That music snippet normally occurs only at start up and normal shut down. The fact that it occurs twice quickly in succession with the Saving your personal settings message leads me to believe it's looping out of boot to some kind of restart. Only from the ctrl-alt-del screen can I shut down normally (without the music!). I have logged on as Admin, but same result. Last known good configuration in safe mode also didn't work; same result. No strange noises, hardware seems fine. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks, Michael

Did the same thing happen when loading in safe mode, it may be that the shutdown script is being run by another application. If you can get into safe mode, I would try running msconfig, and disabling all optional startups and all optional scripts and see what happens the next time..