I was recovering previously deleted documents with "Smart Fat Recovery" and maybe accidently “wiped” a window file!!

On Boot, the Toshiba screen comes up, followed by the Windows screen which dit dit dits across approx ¾ of the way, then Windows screen states “Setup is being restared….”
This is followed by a blue screen with a 1inch black border, followed by a black screen with cursor (safe mode??)
Then a mini-second flash of error message
And back to Boot with Toshiba logo etc.

My TOSHIBA SATELITTE 2595CDS laptop is running Win2K pro.
The laptop is set to auto logon.

I don’t have a recovery disk, do have the original Toshiba setup disk (which originally ran Win98), have set of Boot diskettes and 3 month old RegScrub registry save.
I’ve tried to recover thru Safe mode, Boot diskettes, and Win 2K disk, through all the perambulations. As soon as the laptop tries to load windows, I am back to the cycling.

Inet research suggests that the following files may be missing:
NTLDR
boot.ini
ntdetect.com
Rundll32.dll
ntoskrnl.exe
bootvid.dll
hal.dll
system.alt
but without knowing which folder to look in (even with Win2K’s almost Dos), I haven’t been able to check for them. Besides I’ve forgotten what little Dos I used to know, with which I might copy these files (to which folders??)

Does anyone know how to pause at the error screen – it flashes too fast to hit the pause or Windows button, and holding down shift or delete or shft ctrl del does not get me out of auto logon.

I'd prefer not to do a chkdsk which would nullify any corruped files I was originally trying to rexcue. Thanks!!

Does noone know a dos sequence or a command to pause the screen at the error screen, or to at least slow it down long enough to read?

If it came with Win 98 and you now have W2k, it was probably a retail or non branded OEM install. Can you contact the person that but the W2k on that computer to see about getting the W2k disk? Or is that practical?

Thank you for considering my problem Acklan.
The original laptop owner may still have the 2K he installed on the laptop - I'll contact him and check, but it will take some time dealing with snailmail. I'll let you know.

I did update the bios and video driver at one time and have a copy of drivers
s259vid8 (video driver)
toshLED9 (video driver)
tbios win9x/NT v2 (bios)
1259v82 (bios)

and I have copies of MS updates 1-3
If any of this helps, while I await SnailMail

I'll be here.

to pause the screen you press the "Pause ___ Break" button that should be around your caps lock light.

One thim i had a old laptop do somtin lik this. It would start setup, start to load the os, and it would reboot. we eventually relized it was the memory. We never did try to get more mem, because it went bad before we could. So, it might could be the memory go bad, but i would suggest you try more things first if you dont have any extra memory.

thank you Alexander - unfortunately the error code flies by so fast the pause button doesn't catch it, even holding it for an extended time.

Acklan - I did manage to get a copy of the original win2k installm - but the serial # are lost. So I've borrowed another copy with diff serial # and an OEM copy.

I've also dwnlded EBCD (emergency boot CD) from http://www.ebcd.pcministry.com/ - a linux based boot disk creator wi diagnostic (AIDA32) & recovery software. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out enough linux to use it, and see if I can add any other diagnostic sftware to it. I was going to try Knoppix, but can't find a zipped copy, and estimates are for anywhere from 3 to 36 hours to dwnload on dialup. I could possibly handle the 3 hrs, NOT the 36hr.