I've thoroughly exhausted any good ideas on this problem; maybe someone out there has an answer. First off; my machine: dual pentium III 600's (Katmai 100mhz fsb) Tyan Thunder 100 w/ 1.18.02 AMI Bios 256mb PC100 onboard SCSI controls CD-RW and CDROM Geforce MX2 AGP card (all other peripherals removed from case for ease of repair) OK, i've been running this system on WIN2K since the OS's release with no problems whatsoever. I decide to flash my BIOS with the latest versions using AMI's flash utility, i do everything by the book, i clear my CMOS. (BTW, i flashed the BIOS again much later just to rule it out as the problem and had no errors) I restart my computer, she starts to load 2K, and shortly after logging in, i get the Blue Screen of Death. So i restart again, same thing. I try this several times, and it always gives me the BSOD with various stop messages: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED / NTOSKRNL.exe being the most popular one. so realizing i have a serious problem i attempt to just install 2K over my original copy, so it goes and erases my old WINNT directory, and begins to copy the new setup files from the CD. Lo and behold; she crashes to the BSOD!! I start ripping the system apart, took every damn card out, went into the BIOS, disabled any sort of shadowing and caching, i even disable ACPI (cause i hear that theres alot of BIOS conflicts??)reboot and try the floppies again. This time it gets through the setup files, and automatically reboots, i dont get the BSOD, but it halts the load in DOS and says that the NTOSKRNL.exe is either missing or corrupt. I break out the old win98 boot disk and run a scandisk, which magically finds damage in the winnt/system32 (my drive is FAT32 but it insists that the repaired directory was FAT???) directory and repairs it, i surface scan with no results and i figure im in the clear and reboot - wrong; still busted, same error.....Screw the whole thing; i deltree the WINNT directory, and reboot, setting the CDROM as the boot drive (cause im tired of waiting for the 4 boot disks..) so it jumps the CDROM, jumps the floppy, and goes right to the hard disk, and the same message comes up about NTOSKRNL.exe. Im perplexed by this because i had just nuked any windows files that were on the system, so why is it still trying to load win2k? So i come to these forums and find alot of the same problems which seem to get resolved with some BOOT.INI tweaking, problem is, im trying to edit it with DOS Edit, and its write-protected, so i cant alter the file. I try to install windows repair console from the CD, says it cant be installed from DOS!! and no, i dont have emergency repair diskettes to use that method. im tempted to format the drive, but id lose everything on it; and ive seen quite a few people who've had similar probs and even after formatting, the error haunted them. So here i am, no OS to work with, dead in the water. Im lucky to have this Thinkpad so i can cry for help. im in desperation!! please help!! thanks in advance.

If you suspect it being the boot.ini file, you may edit it in DOS by removing the 'read-inly' attribute from the file. Use the 'attrib -r boot.ini' command to do so (making sure that you have attrib.exe on your DOS diskette...) Frankly, however, I would format the damn thing.

ok, i gave the attrib command a shot and it gives me this: Not resetting hidden file c:/boot.ini so i tried the -h command to make it not hidden first and: Not resetting hidden file c:/boot.ini and i tried the -s command just for laughs and got the same thing....I'm beginning to think that someone or something sure does hate me. thanks anyway. anyone else?

I agree it does not sound like a boot.ini thing. I've had several of those blue screesn and usually reboot with "last good config" always fixes it. To get the boot.ini use the attrib -h -s -r all together..... LOL, JackL

ok, got to the boot.ini and screwed around with it (thanks alot for the tip!)but still no avail. dont know whats left to do? thanks again

Boot from a win98 standard boot disk and once at a command prompt type in fdisk /mbr This will rewrite the master boot record and possibly will resolve the error. If this does not correct the problem you can put the mbr back by booting off w2k disks (cd or floppy) and selecting recovery console. From there you can use the FIXMBR utility. Once here you can also try the FIXBOOT utility. I have used both of these and have successfully recovered systems using these.

I have had many similar problems with installing new hardware or updating thier BIOS and drivers. Originally with my GeForce2 then with adding my CDRW. Every time on reboot the system would hang. My only save was to go back to SAFE MODE and remove any driver or hardware that could be causing it. Rebooting to normal, crossing fingers, then reinstall the drivers for the hardware from scratch. As I said, I have had this many times. This has worked for all but 3 times. Those times I had to format and restart. Master Boot Record was not the issue, nor was the BOOT.INI, these I see as security heavy handedness by 2000 conflicting with the installation of updates. If anyone can pin-point PLEASE let me know as well. It has been giving me the S&#T's