Like Windows 9x, Windows 2000 allows you to boot the system into Safe Mode after a failure. Safe Mode usually prevents Windows 2000 from freezing at the blue screen by loading with a minimal set of drivers and services. You're limited in what you can do in Safe Mode, but accessing the Windows interface gives you a leg up on solving problems from a command prompt.

You can access Safe Mode by pressing F8 at the Windows 2000 Boot Menu. When you do, you'll see another boot menu containing several options, including Safe Mode.

Some hardware failures are so severe they prevent booting in Safe Mode. In such a case, you can try using the Recovery Console, a command-line environment designed to help recover Windows 2000 after a catastrophic failure.

Windows 2000 doesn't install the Recovery Console by default, so I recommend you manually install it before a crash occurs. If you can't spare the 70-plus MB of hard disk space Recovery Console requires, or if you've already been hit by a crash, you can access the Recovery Console through a set of Windows 2000 boot disks. If you don't have a set of boot disks, you can easily make one using the MAKEBOOT.EXE utility found in the BOOTDISK directory on the Windows 2000 installation CD-ROM.

Given the limited set of tools available to you through the Recovery Console, there's a good chance you're not going to be able to fix the problem completely. The idea behind this utility is to get the system to the point where you can boot into Safe Mode. Simply going into Safe Mode doesn't fix the problem either, but it gets you around one obstacle so you can start fixing the problem.

Once you've booted the system into Safe Mode, and before you make any changes to the system, check the various log files through the Event Viewer for a clue as to what might have gone wrong. If the Event Viewer tells you the problem, you can fix it and get on with life. If the Event Viewer doesn't help, you can reboot the system and use the Boot Logging option to build a log file that details the boot process. Depending on what the problem is, this file can pinpoint the problem or just provide a vague clue. You can access the Boot Logging option by pressing F8 at the Windows 2000 Boot Menu. Boot logging creates a file called NTBTLOG.TXT in the same directory Windows is installed in.

Safe Mode, Recovery Console, Event Viewer, and boot logging should pinpoint most problems, but you may still run into situations where they won't be much help. In these instances, you have to start with an educated guess and work from there.

Zeroing in on a system problem is best accomplished with Window's Device Manager. Once you've booted in Safe Mode, access Device Manager by going to Start › Settings › Control Panel › System. Select the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.

Keep in mind that you're running in Safe Mode. Since Safe Mode loads Windows 2000 with a minimal driver set, it's possible the problem won't show up under the Device Manager. Device Manager cannot locate hardware problems if the hardware's drivers haven't been loaded.

Also remember that if the system is able to boot into Safe Mode, you've already narrowed down the problem. Obviously, all of the drivers used by Safe Mode are good, or the system wouldn't be able to boot at all. Additionally, you can eliminate network drivers from your hunt by using the Safe Mode With Networking booting option. If the system boots in this mode, and you can access the network, you can rest assured that your network hardware and drivers aren't the cause of the problem.

The trick with Device Manager is to disable everything that could potentially be causing the problem. To disable a device, right-click on it from the device manager and select the Properties command from the resulting context menu. When you see the device's properties sheet, select the Do Not Use This Device (Disable) option from the General tab's Device Usage drop-down list.

Once you've disabled everything that could be causing the problem, reboot the system in Normal Mode. If the system reboots successfully, then one of the devices you disabled was the one causing the problem. If the boot still fails, something you overlooked is the cause of the problem.

Now, re-enable one device and reboot the system again. If the system boots successfully, continue re-enabling devices one at a time, rebooting between each one, until you find the device that's causing the system to fail.

Once you've located this device, boot into Safe Mode, disable the suspect device, and enable everything else. Then, boot the system into Normal Mode. If the system boots, you've found the culprit.

If your system is bootable in Normal Mode, you can still use Device Manager to diagnose the problem by selecting the Scan For Hardware Changes command from the Action menu. This command tells Device Manager to examine the system's hardware configuration and look for anything that might have changed. A lot of times, it can resolve plug and play related conflicts. Unfortunately, this action doesn't seem to have any effect in Safe Mode. If you don't know the source of the problem yet, you have to work through the process of elimination detailed above.

Once you've located the delinquent device, it's time to fix the problem. The exact method will vary depending on what the problem device is. For example, you'd use a different troubleshooting technique for a CD-ROM drive than for a network card. Nevertheless, there are some general checkpoints:

First, go to the device's Resources tab (if it exists) and check for conflicts in the Input / Output Range, Memory Range, Interrupt Request, and DMA settings. If you're dealing with an older piece of hardware, you should also make sure the resources Windows has assigned to the hardware actually match up to what the hardware device itself is configured to use. Sometimes, resetting a jumper or changing a value on the Resources tab may be all it takes to cure the problem.

You might also check the driver. Go to the hardware manufacturer's Web site and download the latest device driver, then use the Update Driver button on the Driver tab to install it.

Brien M. Posey is an MCSE and freelance writer. He has been Director of Information Systems for a national chain of health care facilities and a network engineer for the Department of Defense. Because of the extremely high volume of e-mail that Brien receives, it's impossible for him to respond to every message, although he does read them all.