[GKeeper959]

Hello again, GTG,

I'm working on a friend's computer. She lost power last night, and when trying to reboot this morning, has found that her computer falls into a loop. When trying to boot up Windows 2000 Pro, BIOS seems to load ok, the computer goes through its routine, but when it gets ready to load Windows, it just reboots itself and starts all over. An stop error comes up sporadically (not sure what causes it) that says:

"The ACPI Bios in this system is not fully compliant to the specification. Please read the readme.txt for possible workarounds, or contact your system vendor for an updated bios.

The bios in this system is not fully ACPI compliant. Please contact your system vendor for an updated bios. If you are unable to obtain an updated bios or the latest bios supplied by your vendor is not ACPI compliant, you can turn off ACPI mode during text mode setup. To do this, simply press the F7 key when you are prompted to install storage drivers. The system will not notify you that the F7 key was pressed - it will silently disable ACPI and allow you to continue your installation."



Windows support suggests to press the F7 key when the system boots to the point that it says "Press F6 if you need to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver", but unfortunately I never see that in the bootup process... I guess it doesn't get that far before the computer reboots itself. Windows support also says this is nothing that can be fixed from the OS level.

I've tried (unsuccessfully so far) to make boot disks from bootdisk.com, but I seem to run into trouble, perhaps because I'm trying to make these disks from a computer running XP? We haven't been able to find her Windows 2000 CD, so until I can get a copy of it, I was wondering if you all had any suggestions. I REALLY don't want to reload the OS... salvaging the data is pretty crucial.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks!

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Hi Gkeeper959

When you are booting are you still able to get into Safe Mode, usually pressing F8 as the system starts booting, are you also able to get into the BIOS, usually Delete key when first starting.

you can turn off ACPI mode during text mode setup. To do this, simply press the F7 key when you are prompted to install storage drivers. The system will not notify you that the F7 key was pressed - it will silently disable ACPI and allow you to continue your installation."

Duing text mode setup, and when prompted to install storage drivers are what you will see on a blue screen when installing the OS, not each time the cp boots.

If recovering the data is crucial before completing a reinstall of 2000, I would take the HD out of her cp, move the jumpers on the back for Slave, put the HD into my cp, with my drive set as Master, boot into XP and copy the data to my drive. Both HDs are probably formatted with NTFS.

If you have downloaded the files to create the Windows 2000 Boot Disks, it will not matter if they are created on XP, 2000, or 95, the program will create the files for installing 2000. Hope some of this helps.

[Spank_Me]

Hi Gkeeper959

When you are booting are you still able to get into Safe Mode, usually pressing F8 as the system starts booting, are you also able to get into the BIOS, usually Delete key when first starting.

you can turn off ACPI mode during text mode setup. To do this, simply press the F7 key when you are prompted to install storage drivers. The system will not notify you that the F7 key was pressed - it will silently disable ACPI and allow you to continue your installation."

Duing text mode setup, and when prompted to install storage drivers are what you will see on a blue screen when installing the OS, not each time the cp boots.

If recovering the data is crucial before completing a reinstall of 2000, I would take the HD out of her cp, move the jumpers on the back for Slave, put the HD into my cp, with my drive set as Master, boot into XP and copy the data to my drive. Both HDs are probably formatted with NTFS.

If you have downloaded the files to create the Windows 2000 Boot Disks, it will not matter if they are created on XP, 2000, or 95, the program will create the files for installing 2000. Hope some of this helps.

[GKeeper959]

Hey Spank_Me,

The computer will not boot in safe mode (it will just cycle through reboot after reboot), although I can get to the screen to start safe mode by pressing F8. Booting in Last Known Good Configuration leads to the same thing. I can get into BIOS by pressing delete.

The odd thing about this is that in most of the literature I've seen, this problem occurs when trying to install Windows 2000. In this case, the OS was already present, but the error occurred when trying to boot up the computer after a power failure in the house the night before. So, the blue screen that you and Windows referred to never appears. I will try your advice about making her drive my comp's slave to recover her data, then maybe reloading the OS will get her computer back in working order.

As for the boot disks, I downloaded the image files as zipped files and unzipped them on my computer, but each was too big to fit on newly formatted HD floppy disks. Also, I tried running MAKEBOOT.exe, and it would prompt me to enter the floppy drive letter, but after pressing 'a', the program would kill itself. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Any insight into making boot disks would help.

Thanks!

[RaaF]

Perhaps a dumb remark, but since Windows was complaining about the BIOS, have you tried to reset it (jumper on MB) ?

[GKeeper959]

Hey, Raaf,

It's never a dumb remark to me... I'll take any opinions. I successfully installed the troubled HD in my computer as a slave and have backed up the entire thing, so thanks for that suggestion, Spank_Me. At least now if I can't figure out what the problem is, I can try reloading the OS without worrying about data loss. And I will certainly try resetting the jumper, Raaf. Whatever works.

Thanks for your help!

[Spank_Me]

Good thing that you could complete a backup, been there, done that.....

I downloaded the files from bootdisk.com myself, tried running makebt32 and the same thing is happening on my cp, something to look into.....anyway, if you want to try another way this link will take you to Technet with some instructions.

http://www.microsoft...db_con_WKEH.asp

One quick question though, did you run a backup of the drive through a backup program or did you just copy and paste files over. Sometimes with the backup, if there is a system setting that is wonky... and you have completed a full reinstall, then restore from backup, it might cause the issue to come back.

I would copy any files over that are needed, format the drive and complete a fresh, full install of the OS and any apps. If your cp has a burner, you can copy files to CD instead of changing drives back and forth. Let us know how this turns out.

[GKeeper959]

Hey, Spank,

Tell me about it!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had issues with bootdisk.com's files... perhaps something that should be pointed out to them. Thanks for that link; if I can't get fiddling with the jumpers on the motherboard to work, I may try making another bootdisk and see if that works before opting for the reinstall.

I didn't back up the drive using a backup program. Instead, I just copied everything to a bunch of CDs. It's mainly to save files anyway, not so much programs or system settings, so if I have to do a complete OS reinstall, I'll at least have all the pictures, music, etc. to put back on my friend's computer.


Thanks again for the help!