Alright a friend of mine's computer all of a sudden died on him and he replaced the motherboard, then he couldn't get anything to start up, even after replacing it with a completely different motherboard. (I made a thread about this a while back.) Well he finally decided to take it in and get it repaired. They fixed part of the problem, he can get it to start up now, but they were also supposed to install Windows 2000, and they defenitely screwed something up. It will not boot into Windows 2000 at all. There are a ton of different problems it's having, all of them happen at random times.

It will not boot from the hard disk at all. It will detect it, but it will not boot.

Ok let me go down the line of problems.

When starting up, he gets a message at the bottom every time that says:
'FSB400/DDR333 Configuration Detected, DDR333 downgraded to DDR266'. Now after that there are three things that can happen, one happens at random each time.
1. It will flash that message and the computer will begin to boot up normally
2. It will say 'Keyboard Error Press F4 to resume'
3. It will say 'Hard Disk Error Press F4 to resume'

However, the keyboard and hard disk are both working.

Assuming it doesn't show an error and proceeds to boot up like normal, it then says 'Press any key to boot from CD.......' if I don't press a key it says 'Disk error Press any key to restart'

If I press a key to boot from CD, it starts the Windows 2000 setup and when it gets through it says 'The file (random file, usually different each time) is corrupted, press any key to continue' a press a key and it takes me to the original problem.

Original Problem:
Each time the computer starts to boot into Windows 2000 (I see the bars on the bottom start to load) it says '\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEMced is missing or corrupt', I followed these instructions, which I guess didn't work. I was usually able to start up the computer boot into Windows 2000, see the loading bars and then get the message but now it rarely happens.

This computer is a mess...

I'm tempted to tell him to just toss the whole thing because it's completely screwed but if there's a way to fix it, I want to do that.

By the way, I've tried chkdsk, it goes to about 24% then stops and says there is an unrecoverable problem on the drive.

At first I was able to get into the recovery console somewhat easily but now after following the Microsoft instructions on how to fix the SYSTEMced problem (which it didn't fix), it's very hard cause I usually get a corrupt file message and it restarts or tries to boot into Windows 2000 (and fails).

What do I do??

Hey there Roryt2000,

Firstly it sounds like the hard drive is buggered, but let me answer your questions in order.

You should be able to change this setting within your BIOS, but first take a look at the sticker on the RAM stick and see whether it says DDR333 or DDR266.
Once you know which it is then boot into the BIOS and change the setting.

The other errors you are having could be either or both of the following:

1. The system could be overheating, so check all fans and make sure they are spinning
2. Hard drive is malfunctioning - replace

Because chkdsk stops at 24% it definately sounds like a hard drive error, do you have another hard drive you can setup in the machine temporarily to see if you can load 2000 on it?

Hi - Sounds like fun!!

I'd start by replacing the HDD and trying to install w2k on that as you may have a bad section of the drive which is only failing once you get so far.
Also the memory sounds like it's the wrong speed for the motherboard, which is why it downgrades itself. If you know what motherboard and memory you have let us know.