hello! Last nigth we wanted to set up my boyfriends PC. When you get that colorful win 2k startup screen with the bar it keeps stopping at the end of that, only one cell of the bar left, crunches occasionally but doesn´t go on. What´s happening at that stage and what could we do? We unplugged the network cable that had been on (stupid?) but no change. Thanks a lot!!

mmm - perhaps a little more info. first would be ueful... what are the specs etc. of the problem PC (especially cpu and how much RAM installed)?

Its 128 RAM, a Celeron 550MHZ, Win 2k professional. Its possible to start in protected mode and in the meantime we checked logs and conflicts. There was an IRQ conflict that we resolved but it says the NT APM "hub" is a "problem device"? (The win version is german) This old PC is a Toshiba complete system do you think that could cause troubles? The RAM isn´t much but shouldn´t it be enough? =(

mmmm... 128Meg RAM is adquate to get W2K installed/going - just...; more is nicer... The bar (left top?) to which you may be referring is actually an indicator of various hardware items being detected and drivers installed... Each dot/cell represents an item. The fewer items to be detected and drivers required (to be installed etc.) at time of boot (and thus the fewer the number of dots/cells you have), the beter... If the system stalls during boot it may be because an unrecognised hardware item has been detected; that an incorrect/invalid driver is being used; that no driver is present at all...? Is this elderly Toshiba OK (compliant) for W2K; all drivers etc. as they should be? Perhaps run the W2K readiness advisor to see if things are as they should be for W2K? http://www.tburke.net/info/win2k/win2k.htm and scroll to: Analyzer and then have a read and download/run it? Also the Toshiba web-site may have info. re the state of this laptop with regard to readiness/compliane for/with W2K; this may incl any necesary downloads - drivers etc. - that you may need? Having the network cable plugged in "shouldn't" (the dreaded " S " word...) have made any difference; but usually wise not to have any unnecessary things installed/connected etc. (if possible) when installing an OS.

Thank you for checking back! Right now, while I am cozy at my place on a working system (how nice that is!) he gave up and formats again to install old 98. We had also installed the device drivers from the Toshiba CD, it has two options: 89 or win nt, we used the NT drivers. The last one was the APM driver which caused a blue screen and it wouldn´t even go into save mode anymore...that put his patience to an end and I can understand that. (btw PM is enabled in the bios) I am sure he´ll check out your helpful links and the Toshiba website once that PC is running again! Win 2k would be nice for the I-pod mini he got for christmas ;) the original drivers need 2k or xp. But it´s probably easier to make the i-pod work on 98 than Win2k on that PC... Thank you!