Windows 2000 boot failure System Description: Gateway laptop, Pentium 4 Dual boot Windows 2000 Professional and Mandrake. Hard Drive is partitioned for Windows 2000 (Primary NTFS, the C: drive), Linux (Ext2), and a data drive (FAT32, D: drive). When I tried to boot into Windows, I got halfway through the boot sequence (I saw the normal Windows 2000 Professional splash screen and the status bar made it about half way across) when I received a blue screen saying that there had been a boot failure. The message said: STOP: [some hex numbers] INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE and then told me to reboot, check for viruses, and run CHKDISK F/. These are the events and what I've tried so far: 1)I left my computer on last night with Norton Antivirus scheduled to run a full system scan in the evening (weekly schedule - I have never had a problem with it). 2)Came in this morning and my computer was off, which is not normal. Usually there is a description of the virus scan and I'm usually still in Windows. 3)Booted into Linux and did some routine things (web stuff, mail, etc.) I didn't access the NTFS partition during this session. But I did change the time on the clock. I performed a normal Halt to exit Linux. Everything shut down fine. 4)I tried booted into Windows and saw the boot error message for the first time. 5)Rebooted into Windows, same error. 6)I ran Partition Magic rescue disks and checked all partitions. PM said there were no errors on any of the partitions (I think this actually just runs the Windows Scandisk utility, but not positive.) 7)I enabled Boot Logging (from F8 during start-up) and tried rebooting in Windows, same error. I couldn't find the NTBTLog.txt file in the WINNT directory (or anywhere else.) 8)Tried a Safe Mode boot. Same error. 9)Tried Safe Mode with Networking, and also Safe Mode from Command Prompt. 10)Tried booting from Last Known Good Configuration. 11)I ran the Windows 2000 Setup and chose Repair (R). I tried the Emergyency Repair, both Fast (F) and Manual (M) options. In both cases, it said I needed a Windows Repair Disk. I tried the Locate (L) option, which gave me the error “Setup cannot find a Windows 2000 Installation to Repair”. If I said I had a repair disk, I received the error “Automated System Recovery encountered internal inconsistency (A2210) and cannot continue.” I have had Linux installed for quite a while and never had a problem. I'm not sure if the Norton Antivirus scan had anything to do with the problem, but that was the last thing to run and caused the OS to shutdown, which is not normal. I would really, really like to not re-install Windows. My data partition (D) is still accessible from Linux. Please, any help would be greatly appreciate(!!) Thanks, Matthew.

It's possible that there may have been a brief power outage overnight. I've also seen a case where a faulty monitor was causing a system to shut down due to a short. *Back up your work before proceeding!* -There may be a number of things going on here. Try using a virus scanner in linux to scan the NTFS partition for viruses. I assume that you have NTFS support in the kernel or as a module and that the information is already in mtab and fstab for that partition. RAV Antivirus used to be available for Linux. I don't know if it still is since Microsoft bought them out. NTFS support may still be read-only with DANGEROUS write support. Carefully consider your options. -You could also put a drive in the machine with Windows on it that already has a virus scanner or use an online virus scanner from that Windows Installation to scan the Windows 2000 parition on the othe drive. -Make sure that the Windows 2000 Partition is set as a primary partition. -Try enabling Virus Protection in your BIOS if it isn't already enabled. Have you tried booting off the Windows 2000 CD to the Recovery Console? I would strongly suggest making a linux boot disk and backing up your work before proceeding. Once you boot into Windows 2000 setup, choose repair. Instead of emergency repair, choose recovery console. Here are a series of commands that you might want to try. Try the map command to see where the partitions are on your machine. Try running chkdsk /p /r to see if there are errors on the disk. If you can locate the NTBTLog.txt file, use the Type command to view it. Type NTBTLog.txt. Warning: This next two commands could cause your Linux partition to be inaccessible if you don't have an a Linux Boot Disk. Try fixmbr to fix the main boot record. Do NOT select Yes if it says that you have a non-standard boot record. Try fixboot to re-write a new boot sector. Again, if you get an error about a non-standard boot sector or boot record, I recommend that you do NOT proceed with the command. *Very important. Back up all work before proceeding. All data could be lost on the disk!* Go to you Gateway's web site and looking for a hard drive diagnostics utility for your drive. If there is none at Gateway's website, go to your manufacturer's website and download their diagnostics utility. You'll need a separate Windows installation to create a bootable diskette with the hard drive diagnostics and utilities. Once the disk is created, reboot and boot off the floppy disk. Run the diagnostics programs on the floppy to check your hard drive for errors. There is a chance, that for whatever reason, you might lose data if errors are found on the drive. I hope this helps.