Win2K and WinNT4 hang before login screen

[HectorTheDog]

Hi. I upgraded my second PC with a new hardrive and new RAM sometime ago. After the upgrade and reinstallation of the OSs, I now have a strange problem.

When the PC is first switched on it POSTs properly, then I get to select the OS I want to run, and after selecting Win2K Server I get the Win2K Server family loading screen with the progress bar. The screen then changes as usual as though the "Press Alt+Ctrl+Del to logon" is about to be displayed, but it never appears, and neither does the mouse pointer.

Now it gets weird. If I switch it off and on again it boots fine all the way and the PC shows no sign of a problem.

Note that the same behaviour is observed for WinNT4 Server.

Seems that it needs to warm up or something, or the drive isn't ready, or there is some other strange voodoo at work.

I logged the Win2K start up and the last driver to load before the hang was afd.sys, and on a normal boot up the next driver to load would be wdmaud.sys or wdmaud.drv (can't remember which, dont have the logs with me)

Its too late to remove the drive, and I've tried putting the memory into different slots, with no effect.

Help! Any clues would be useful.

Regards

HtD

[Rick]

I’ve seen the same behavior in Win98se
In my case it was a problem with the swap file .
I cured it on my system by locking the file to one size.

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To ERR is HUMAN
To REALLY screw things UP, YOU NEED a COMPUTER !