Win2K LOGON LOOP

Keano

I am trying to repair Windows 2000 pro laptop where It seems to be stuck in some kind of logon loop after I type the user name and password.
And the problem exists for ALL my profiles. Not even the Admin can login. After typing in the password, all the settings proceed correctly... However just as it says loading settings... the Welcome to windows logon box re-appears thus asking me to type in the password AGAIN this just keeps going on and on...

It gets worse. Even when I boot it into Safe Mode the same thing happens!

I don't want to re-install as their data that is needed on the machine.

Have tried doing a repair with the original disc that came with the machine but no joy!

Please help

Jaoibh

Sorry Pal,

I've seen this before there's two options really install a fresh copy of windows on the same hard disk which should let you get at your directories. back them up and format the machine.

Place the hard disk into a second machine and backup the hard disk.
Format the machine and reinstall windows.

I never found a proper solution to recover from this sort of crash.

ntlbell

from another machine run regedit and connect to the problematic machine

browse to

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

check the UserInit key

make sure the path is

"C:\[URL="javascript:void(0)"]WINNT[/URL]\system32\userinit.exe,"



If that doesn't work, boot up off the windows 2k disk into recovery console and run FIXMBR



then if you have windows 98 boot floppy if you don't you can download an image online and write it to the floppy



boot up off it and do a FDISK /MBR



one of the two generally solves it for me

Keano

I am only getting around to trying to resolve this issue!

When I run FIXMBR I get the following warning

This computer appears to have non-standard or invalid master boot record
FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed
This could cause all all the partitions to become inaccessible
If you are having any problems accessing your drive do not continue

ianblyth

it's a virus.. happened on my brothers machine after he downloaded some "software"... then the logon loop... only way to fix it is a fresh install..

try and get all the data off the HD by attaching it to another computer... then format... and reinstall from scratch...

ntlbell

Keano A Legend wrote: »

I am only getting around to trying to resolve this issue!

When I run FIXMBR I get the following warning

This computer appears to have non-standard or invalid master boot record
FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed
This could cause all all the partitions to become inaccessible
If you are having any problems accessing your drive do not continue

did you try the registry fix?

Bodan

I had this exact same problem around a year ago. I had some malware/trojan loading up that caused the Logon to crash every single time. I managed to fix it by, having a dual boot machine; I was able to look at the last accessed files in my windows 2000 directory. I googled the ones I didn’t know and ones that looked suspicious.... in the end i deleted 3 files. Virus scanners/ malware tools didn’t work, not even from the good OS. Took 24 hours to fix! It was worth it in the end as I didn’t want to lose all my stuff and have to wipe and re install everything.