I have FC8 and win2k working happily together for a long time. But a
few weeks back, I had some problem with grub and greeter application
and since then my win2k is not booting up at all. When I select Win2k
from grub options it hangs saying WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is
corrupt etc. Thought I will boot it up with WIN2K CD and repair. Bur
it would not let me. After booting from CD it will hang saying
'Checking system hardware ...'.

Then I tried booting with a XP CD. Same thing. Everything hangs at
'Checking system hardware ...'. I have waited overnight to see it it
was really doing anything. But No it was hung. I have googled a lot
and tried many things, but none have worked.

I am checking if any of the Linux experts have a solution which can
fix my Windows. I can see and access all my Win2k files thro' my FC8.

Thanks a lot, NS.

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:21:58 -0700, sridhar wrote:

> I have FC8 and win2k working happily together for a long time. But a
> few weeks back, I had some problem with grub and greeter application
>
What kind of trouble?

> and since then my win2k is not booting up at all. When I select Win2k
> from grub options it hangs saying WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is
> corrupt etc. Thought I will boot it up with WIN2K CD and repair. Bur
> it would not let me. After booting from CD it will hang saying
> 'Checking system hardware ...'.
> 
> Then I tried booting with a XP CD. Same thing. Everything hangs at
> 'Checking system hardware ...'. I have waited overnight to see it it
> was really doing anything. But No it was hung. I have googled a lot
> and tried many things, but none have worked.
> 
> I am checking if any of the Linux experts have a solution which can
> fix my Windows. I can see and access all my Win2k files thro' my FC8.
> 
> Thanks a lot, NS.
>
Note: comment in line,

Caveat: I am not using FC8

I found this article:
http://www.pcuser.com.au/pcuser/hs2.nsf/lookup+1/56AD59C8F8AAE93ECA25715E0010F9BB

The article iself claims that Windows may not like your partition tables;
personally, Perhaps, post your partition tables if you think they are
relevent. IMO, the author is in a bit of a panic mode; giving advice to
gut the system when it may be fixable. For example, the grub loader has
always worked for me (when installed at the MBR, or a bootable CD, etc.)
to boot WinNT x.x. So, in general, I am not sure I agree with the advice
in the article. I posted it because the answer may be in some of the
comments posted below the article. Perhaps, there is a clue found there
which will help fix your system. One comment suggests that Windows setup
has trouble with usb keyboards. Are you using a USB keyboard? The comment
suggests using a ps/2 style keyboard. 

In addition to keyboard settings, there are various other BIOS settings
which may need to be tweaked when dual booting; for example, the settings
for AHCI SATA mode may need tweaking. But if you haven't made changes
(such as a major motherboard upgrade, or fooled around with known
good BIOS settings), then the fix should be easier than the major surgery
suggested by the above article.

Other things to check...
You should verify your disk is not suffering from some hardware failure.
badblocks is your friend.

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:21:58 -0700, sridhar wrote:

> I have FC8 and win2k working happily together for a long time. But a few
> weeks back, I had some problem with grub and greeter application and
> since then my win2k is not booting up at all. When I select Win2k from
> grub options it hangs saying WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is corrupt
> etc. Thought I will boot it up with WIN2K CD and repair. Bur it would
> not let me. After booting from CD it will hang saying 'Checking system
> hardware ...'.
> 
> Then I tried booting with a XP CD. Same thing. Everything hangs at
> 'Checking system hardware ...'. I have waited overnight to see it it was
> really doing anything. But No it was hung. I have googled a lot and
> tried many things, but none have worked.
> 
> I am checking if any of the Linux experts have a solution which can fix
> my Windows. I can see and access all my Win2k files thro' my FC8.
> 
> Thanks a lot, NS.

Is there any reason that you need native Win2K? Unless you are playing 
games the best solution is to use VMware Server to run Win2k on top of 
Fedora, that's what I do. The performance of a Win2K VM is very close to 
the native performance, I bet you won't be able to tell the difference. 
VMs are a much better way to run Windows, here is a list of the advantages,

1) You can keep all of your user files in Linux directories, just export 
the directories that you want Windows to see with Samba and do network 
mounts in Win2K. This makes backup trivial, you can just back them up as 
you would your Linux files using rsync or whatever you use.

2) The VM can be copied just like any file so you can restore Windows in a 
few seconds if it gets hosed.

3) You can cut and past between Windows and Linux applications.

4) You can put your Windows VM in a virtual desktop so switching between 
your Linux and Windows environments is instantaneous.