help: "loader error 3" when booting Windows 2000

My other system has suddenly developed a fatal boot problem (if this is the
wrong newsgroup or there is a better one or some useful website for such
cases please advise!)

AT THE VERY END of the first bootphase (the text screen with the white
activity bar at the bottom of the screen and still BEFORE the second screen
with the Windows 2000 logo and the "based on NT technology" msg. appears the
boot process is suddenly stopped and I get the following error message:
-----------------------
Windows 2000 could not start because of an error in the software
Please report this problem as :
Loader error 3
Please contact your support person to report this problem.
-----------------------

What does that mean and how can one fix this?

None of the options "safe mode" or "last known to be good configuration"
worked. I also tried to enable boot logging, but the "ntbtlog.txt" file that
should be produced when this is enable is nowhere to be found...

I still have another bootable partition on that system with a minimalistic
Win2K installation from which I can access the faulty partition and do some
manipulations, so once I know what that error means and what to do about it,
I hope, that it will somehow be possible to fix this without reinstalling
the OS...

Michael

A couple of suggestions:

- Modify c:\boot.ini by adding the /SOS switch at the far end of your
selected system line.

- Search the MS Knowledge base for entries containing
"Loader error 3".

"Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can@fly.com> wrote in message
news:ewgrT0uVDHA.2164@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> "mmo" <michael.moser@freesurf.ch> wrote in message
> news:edzLIotVDHA.532@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> ...
> A couple of suggestions:
>
> - Modify c:\boot.ini by adding the /SOS switch at the far end of your
> selected system line.

I did that. I get a list of drivers loaded, the last one reads
"...\drivers\agp440.sys". I copied that file over from a backup, but that
didn't change anything. I still get this "blabla .... Loader error 3 ...."
message.

In case you wonder, why I am not simply copying the entire winnt directory
over: I am trying to avoid that if I can since the backup is not exactly
very recent...

> - Search the MS Knowledge base for entries containing
> "Loader error 3".

I did (even before I posted here) and - would you believe it? - didn't find
anything useful! I had expected some list or summary re. all possible loader
error numbers (preferably with some description what might cause them and
how to fix it), but - nada - nothing!

Other ideas?

Michael

When answers can't be found on Microsoft.com, I always
search Google and saw this, posted on
microsoft.public.win2000.setup by a Mr. Nigel Wynne about
this exact problem he was having... Apparently he found
the solution himself:
---
Just if anyone is interested: -
To solve the problem
1 Backup user data
2 Boot with 2000 CD
3 Boot to Console
4 Used FIXBOOT
5 Reboot

Everything OK

[snooffy]

Hey thanks for this, you saved me half day of reinstalling a station.