Stop Error caused DHCP to not be found

[James Taylor_11]

I have an issue...
My computer is connected through a LAN of about 20 or so clients from one server. The server DOES NOT dynamically assign IP's so DHCP isn't really involved. All clients have static addresses. So I come in to work and my computer has the "Blue screen of death" saying a stop error... blah, blah, blah ...memory dump...blah, blah, blah... you know the drill. So then I reboot and get this:

DHCP or proxyDHCP offers were not received.
Boot Failure: System Halted_

And it just sits there like that forever and ever...

I tried reseting the BIOS...no luck
I tried reseting the boot sequence...no dice
I tried direct connection without the use of a hub...nothing
I unplugged the network cable and got:

PXE E61: Media Test Failure, Check cable
PXE MOF: Exiting Intel PXE

Boot Failure: System Halted

My query is why is it trying to interface and boot from the server using DHCP when it has an OS (win2k) bootable on the hard drive and it has a static IP?

What is going on?????

Please help, I can't live without this computer...well, I could but I don't want to :)

JT

[cxtwo]

Are these errors occurring before the system starts Windows 2000? It looks as if the system is attempting to boot over the network.. Perhaps check if the 1st boot device is the hard drive?

cxtwo

[James Taylor_11]

I did try to make sure the hard drive was the first selection in the boot sequence. I still got the same errors. And yes, they are appearing before windows even starts, in fact, windows doens't even start at all. I turn on my computer, it brings up the first boot screen, then goes to the Intel Pentium 4 screen then goes to the DHCP screen where the message appears.

I figured it was trying to boot from the network but we don't have a boot record on the network, and I wouldn't want to have one anyway.

I'm coming to the conclusion that it's my hard drive that's to blame. It looks as if the system isn't detecting the boot record on the hard drive. I took the hard drive out of the tower and put it back in to listen to it when I turned on the computer and heard no spinning at all. I can boot from a win2k cd but it won't do a repair cuz it doesn't even recognize that there is a hard drive on the system at all.

So it seems as though my hard drive has gone kaput. If anyone can think of anything else, i'd appreciate the effort. I'd really hate to lose what i've got on my hard drive but if that's what I have to do...i'll have to do it.

JT

[Stuart Teo]

Check your BIOS setting. Check the bootup sequence or whatever your BIOS calls it. It looks like your machine is trying to do a PXE boot and it failed without falling back to a 2nd boot device.

[Stuart Teo]

My bad. Should have read the whole chain before replying. Yea, I'd say that your HDD has gone kaput. If you change your boot order to have the CD as the first boot device, could you boot from a bootable CD?

[James Taylor_11]

If I hold the F8 key it brings up the Windows 2000 Setup screen from a cd but it won't recognize the hard disk at all if I try to repair or if I try to re-format entirely. It seems I must give up and get a new hard drive.

So sad...

Thanks for all your help!!

JT