apparantly it is my turn this week to be stupid. my laptop has a multiboot with 2k server, xp and 2k3. i know using virtual pc would be a better idea for goofing around with an install but my old notebook just doesn't have the gumption for it. i use xp and the other two are just there to goof around with. the problem is with 2k. a while ago i was messing with the drivers file just to see if i could get 2k to boot using the drivers from xp. i thought not but i figured there is only one way to find out for sure. sure enough, the comp would even think about it complaining about a missing or corrupt ntfs.sys. ok, not a problem. using recovery console i located and retrived the missing file from the cd. i restart and this time it tries to boot but stops after maybe 10-15 seconds and gives the dreaded bsod.
for the second time today. i must have caused more damage than i thought. the error it is showing is 0x0000007b inaccessable boot device. thinking maybe i have other drivers that are not right from my fiddling i rebooted into xp and extracted the drivers.cab file from the 2k server cd to the winnt\system32\drivers file in 2k then rebooted again to see if that fixed things. it did not, i got the same bsod. a quick google search suggested i try chkdsk for errors or possibly a boot sector virus. i checked both and each came up clean. note, i ran chkdsk on the partition containing 2k from the cmd prompt in xp rather than from the recovery console. tomorrow i will do a more indepth search for the cure but in the mean time i thought one of you guys might have the solution. thanks for your help.
btw-after all that i did try last know good just for posterity but that fail to remedy things as well.
