Windows 2000 embedded boot problem...
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Hello all, Introduction: A customer has called me to help him with a computer that doesn't starts... CA = Company A CB = Company B CC = Company C CA has a computer from CB, CB has disappeared a long time ago... CA computer controls an expensive machine that's producing almost 24x7. CA has contacted CC to repair the computer and CC have contacted me to help :~. CA have no backups (This is Sparta!). While booting, CA computer shows the windows 2000 logo and the progress bar grows but at a certain point the computer restarts... and this infinite loop continues once and again... CC have found another computer from CB! That computer is not working well, but it's hard disk boots another copy of Windows 2000 embedded. I want to help them as they can give me proper work in the future and they helped me starting my freelancing job... Question 1: I'm wondering if it would be worth trying to just copy all the system files from the booting windows hard disk into the non booting windows hard disk... Question 2: CB (the disappeared company) used to put safety measures to avoid the program to be copied into different computers, this usually includes storing a key into the registry and checking if that key is there or not... In order to avoid this to explode, does any of you knows which files contain the registry in a windows 2000 embedded OS? I would copy all the OS files except the ones containing the registry... Question 3: I don't have the administrator password, CB computers seem to log in automatically... but the recovery console ask that password... What would you do in order to solve that boot problem? PS: please refrain from recommending running as far as possible from the computer... I truly want to help them... Thank you all for reading and sorry for this long post. :thumbsup:
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Hello all, Introduction: A customer has called me to help him with a computer that doesn't starts... CA = Company A CB = Company B CC = Company C CA has a computer from CB, CB has disappeared a long time ago... CA computer controls an expensive machine that's producing almost 24x7. CA has contacted CC to repair the computer and CC have contacted me to help :~. CA have no backups (This is Sparta!). While booting, CA computer shows the windows 2000 logo and the progress bar grows but at a certain point the computer restarts... and this infinite loop continues once and again... CC have found another computer from CB! That computer is not working well, but it's hard disk boots another copy of Windows 2000 embedded. I want to help them as they can give me proper work in the future and they helped me starting my freelancing job... Question 1: I'm wondering if it would be worth trying to just copy all the system files from the booting windows hard disk into the non booting windows hard disk... Question 2: CB (the disappeared company) used to put safety measures to avoid the program to be copied into different computers, this usually includes storing a key into the registry and checking if that key is there or not... In order to avoid this to explode, does any of you knows which files contain the registry in a windows 2000 embedded OS? I would copy all the OS files except the ones containing the registry... Question 3: I don't have the administrator password, CB computers seem to log in automatically... but the recovery console ask that password... What would you do in order to solve that boot problem? PS: please refrain from recommending running as far as possible from the computer... I truly want to help them... Thank you all for reading and sorry for this long post. :thumbsup:
[Hiren's boot disk](https://www.hirensbootcd.org/old-versions/) to mine the password, and you can use it fix that registry trick if you like with automatic .dat parsers. Win2K should be trivial for it. Bear in mind that there is a small chance you'll frag the drive, so you might want to clone it first. I'd also advise replacing the drive, anyway, if you can. If it's old enough for Win2K to have been relevant, it's likely starting to fray.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
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[Hiren's boot disk](https://www.hirensbootcd.org/old-versions/) to mine the password, and you can use it fix that registry trick if you like with automatic .dat parsers. Win2K should be trivial for it. Bear in mind that there is a small chance you'll frag the drive, so you might want to clone it first. I'd also advise replacing the drive, anyway, if you can. If it's old enough for Win2K to have been relevant, it's likely starting to fray.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
Thank you Nathan! I've tried it into a VM and I've not been able to import the physical hard disk into it so I've not been able to do it... But: I've replaced i386 and Winnt folders from the hard disk that booted windows 2000 perfectly and voila! We have now a perfectly running windows system. I've needed only to update a couple of drivers. All in all, the customer will have the machine working again. :cool:
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Thank you Nathan! I've tried it into a VM and I've not been able to import the physical hard disk into it so I've not been able to do it... But: I've replaced i386 and Winnt folders from the hard disk that booted windows 2000 perfectly and voila! We have now a perfectly running windows system. I've needed only to update a couple of drivers. All in all, the customer will have the machine working again. :cool:
Glad it worked out for you!
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
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Thank you Nathan! I've tried it into a VM and I've not been able to import the physical hard disk into it so I've not been able to do it... But: I've replaced i386 and Winnt folders from the hard disk that booted windows 2000 perfectly and voila! We have now a perfectly running windows system. I've needed only to update a couple of drivers. All in all, the customer will have the machine working again. :cool: