[Lunatique]

My win2000 all of a sudden won't boot up. It gets stuck right before the splash screen. It's happened once before, and I had to reinstall windows. I do NOT want to do that this time since I will lose the 3D work I've been doing for the last few months.

I'm using my laptop to write this, and I'll wait for some good solutions from you techie gurus before I use my last resort--reinstalling.

Help!

[Novacaptain]

make a boot disk that will get you in to dos and get a copy of laplink (find a LPT-1 cable that will link one computer to another too)

laplink can be found by simply typing "LL3.exe" in any search engine and you'll probably be able to back just about everything up on the laptop without too much trouble. It doesn't take too much time either...Getting hold of the cable might be a little tricky. It's basically a printer cable that goes from computer to computer instead of attaching to a printer.

[Novacaptain]

just to make things a bit easier:
http://n.ethz.ch/student/cbolli/download/

you can get laplink from there

[Lunatique]

Is there another way? Like maybe fixing windows somehow without losing the stuff I have on the C drive? I don't have a copy of fdisk, and any other recovery tools. I tried booting from the win2000 CD ROM, but it still gets stuck.

[Novacaptain]

hmm...now that i think of it...would reinstalling windows really overwrite your 3d files?

[Vesuvius]

no, only if he reformatted first.
but if you want help, be more specific. honestly, how in the world can anyone help you with no information other than it freezes.
did you recently install anything
do you get any error messages
can you start in safe mode
can you start with a boot disk
did you have and use an antivirus program
etc.

[Lunatique]

Maya stores its project folder in My Documents, and all of my 3D works are in there. I'm an ass for not backing that up regularly. I back up everything else. Doh!

[Lunatique]

I tried F8 in safe and debug mode already--same thing.

I am not using an anti-virus at the moment(I suspect a virus too).

I recently haven't installed anything that isn't by reputable companies(last thing was a Logitech mouseware. Done it before and no problems. Also a Nvidia AGP controller.)

No error message. Just freezes before splash screen.

I tried booting from the CD ROM of Win2000. No use.

So, if I reinstalled without reformating, it won't erase the content of my c drive?

[Vesuvius]

I know with 98 it wouldn't auto reformat or erase the HDD just by reinstalling, so in 98 your files would be safe, with 2000 I'm not certain but I think so, I'd wait for someone else here to confirm it.
but that won't solve your problems. it'll buy you time to backup files if it works, but make sure you install some antivirus soft on your laptop before transferring anything, and you will still (after salvaging your work) probably (though not definitley if its a virus and you can effectivley use AV software ) need to reformat. I say probably because some virii ( not many ) can tamper with antivirus software, if they are installed before it.
I wish I could offer more help, but I can't.
good luck.

[V Shane]

I have Win2000, that happened to me several times and i had to reinstall. It didn't overwrite my files, but I still had problems. what I found out was that I DIDN"T choose the NTFS file format native to Win2000. Once I did make it NTFS it had to re-format the entire drive and set up the NTFS system.

I was really bent out of shape about it BUT, since then (I have a 2nd drive I put all my files on) and leave the main drive for the programs and the OS. I haven't had any problems with Win2000 since then, its like its completely self sufficient and bug-less because it eliminates the use for Dos, there is no Dos, just a psuedo version.

Try to save what you can by a second party computer, then go to NTFS if you haven't already, its been great for me.

[Lunatique]

Err... my main HD has two partitions- C for win200 and progs, and D for something else. Then I have another HD with two more partitons.

If I made C into NTFS, that means C and D would be running on two different file formats? Is that ok for the same physical HD? I'm running on FAT 32 for all partitions right now.

[Coaster]

go back in time, and download linux instead of windows.

[c]

when i install win2k, i always make sure to install win98 first, and then win2k for a 98/2k dualboot situation.

the ONLY reason i do it is because i've had these weird situations where win2k crashes on bootup and NOTHING and i mean NOTHING fixes it.

so if something blows up, i boot into win98, copy over all relevant files, and then reinstall win2k (which deletes everything in the winnt folder).

if laplink doesnt work, you can try and boot into win98, and copy the important maya files AND your document and settings folder.

that way when you reformat and reinstall win2k you can boot back in into 98, copy the documents and settings folder back to the new 2k install, and most of your settings and stuff are intact.

and of course i never format to ntfs because ntfs blows and more importantly it's not compatible with 98.

i hope some of this helps.

[zak]

if you have the facilities, get the hd outta there, and link it to another comp as a secondary hd, back up everything, and then you can reinstall, if it reinstalls without problems, it goes, youll have backed up, if not u still can refomat with no problem. that happened to me, and that method worked fine, just make sure you dont put your hd next to speakers.
it worked nicely for me, but pls dont blame me if something goes wrong

[[Shizo]]

Lunatique, do you got bootdisk w/ DOS?
If not you can make one on your laptop if you're using Win9x and use it to boot into DOS.
Then just copy over mydocu~1 and whatever else folders you want to backup to the other hard drive which you previously hooked up :)

Also you'll get more help at win2k users' newsgroups or boards, not here.
Dammit people when will you stop coming here for every frigging question in your life! Myself including :(

[Lunatique]

Err, I think I come here because you guys know me, and would be more helpful than strangers from another forum.

Grrr.

Ok, I finally found someone who had a boot disk(I don't have one)to come over and then copied all the stuff I needed from C to another partition. My Maya files are saved. I even got to save my Dungeon Siege save files. Woo!

Now, I have to go and reinstall ALL OF MY FRIGGIN' PROGRAMS.

I still don't know what caused the problem. But I made sure to change My Document's root folder to a seperate partition, and I'll be using an anti-virus program religiously from now on.

BTW, which anti-virus is the shitznazz? Norton? McAfee?

Also, thanks for all the helpful advice. I learned a few things.

[ June 22, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[Novacaptain]

i really like norton av because it scanns things all the freakin time...like when you open a file it gets scaned and so on...mcafee probably does this too though. They're both good i suppose, maybe mcafee is even better because after a while, norton starts bitching about having to renew your subscription to get newer virus definitions (10$ per year). mcafee might do the same tho...

[rant]
AV programs suck, in a world without virii-coding scumbags with crap for brains they wouldn't exist. I hate virii more than anything, i can just imagine how "1337" it feels to screw up thousands of computers owned by "innocent" people that depend on them to work, study and communicate. aaargh! Regular biological ones aren't so bad because at least you can rest assured that they weren't manufactured by some lame-ass jerk who has no greater purpouse in life other than to become an even greater jerk.

Actually some of the biological ones are manufactured by assholes too...military assholes. But don't get me started on biological warfare...[/rant]

Good luck luna, a little bit of paranoid behaviour always pays off when these things happen.

[Vesuvius]

neither AV program is wonderful to everyone, but given that in my experience the mcaffee software crashed fairly often for no good reason (in their software suite, not just the AV stuff). Also given that they released the info about the jpeg 'virus' which in reality is not a virus at all, just a mode of sending code saved as jpegs that an existing virus executes (and they did it to shock people, scare people, and make $$$) I would go with Norton. they both have done shock stuff before, but I think it's more reliable.

also I strongly recommend the firewall zonealarm. I used to use BlackIce, but it didn't catch any outgoing stuff, ZA is very useful for detecting trojan horses.

[[666]Flat]

Talking about software firewalls, what do you guys think about Sygate's Firewall? I think Norton's stuff da shitnizz overall.