Sunday when I got home, the computer was shut down and now Windows2000 will not load on restart. It will load about halfway on the w2k load screen, then a blue error screen pops up and shuts and the computer shuts down. It happens so fast I haven’t been able read all, but part of it says to check hardware. If I try to restart again immediately, it shuts down well before the w2k load screen shows up. On/off button does not work and to turn computer on/off I have to use the switch on the back of the box. This happened the first time about a month ago, then just started working again after killing the power for several – about 8 - hours. There were no new installs when this first happened, and only one since. An app to download market data. This is a new install of w2k about 8 months ago and has had no other problems until now. It is an AMD Athlon 800Mhz , 512 ram, 30 gig hard drive – 15 gig free. It was suggested that it was the bios, but I’ve also been told not to “mess with” that. If anyone can point me in the right direction it will be much appreciated. Thanks, Joe

Are you able to hit F8 to get the boot menu? If so, select Last Known Good Configuration and see if that works for you. If not, then perhaps a piece of hardware did go bad on you. Can you boot from a boot disk? If you don't have one, you can download and create one here: http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/original.htm If it won't let you boot from floppy either, then it isn't your hard drive. If you can boot from floppy, then see if you can run a scan disk on your hard drive to see if it's still useable.

If nothing works... it can be a boot virus...

"This happened the first time about a month ago, then just started working again after killing the power for several – about 8 - hours." -there is a possiblity that your problem could be heat realated. Check to make sure all of your internal fans are working properly. All kinds of crazy things happens to pcs when the overheat.

Ad has a good point that I'd forgotten about. Overheating CPUs do cause lots of freezing and wacky symptoms. Make sure all the vents are clear of dust too. I once had a laptop whose fan died. While waiting for the replacement to come in the mail, I had a box fan blowing directly at the vent and it kept my laptop alive while I had it on.

The "F8" - "Last Known Good Config" did the trick to get it running again. But I'm currious to known why this is happening in the first place. Other than this, it runs perfectly and is well maintained. Constant virus updates and daily scans, etc., etc. Not alot of stuff downloaded then uninstalled. It's a pretty straight forward "by-the-book" box. I'd like to say thanks to all who replied, I hope I can help someday. If anyone has any - and I mean any - theories as to why this happens please let me know. Thanks again, Joe

Windows is buggier than s---, how's that for explanation ;)