When starting up Windows 2000 PRO, my computer hangs before windows is
fully loaded (i.e., it hangs with message: "loading personal
settings").  I have the original software disks for all of the
programs on my computer hard drives.  However, I want the capability
to copy current files from my C: drive to my D: drive before I try to
reload Windows 2000 PRO (or other software) back onto my C: drive.

At one time -- in the distant past -- you could put in a floppy disk
and access the files on your C: drive (or any other drive).  Nowadays,
you put in a system startup disk and all it does is startup in DOS and
does not permit access to the hard drives.

I need a method (other than transfer to a 2nd computer using a program
such as LapLink) to permit access to these drives.

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Clarification of Question by dumbandcurious-ga on 20 Jul 2004 19:28 PDT

Sorry, I forgot one very important clarification.  Using all of the F8
modes such as "safe mode", "safe mode with command line", "debugging",
"last settings that were successful", etc. all ended up in a hangup
with the "loading personal settings" message.

hi:

Your problem is because you have both drivers using NTFS. The only way
to access to this drives on DOS is having them using FAT32.

But, anyway you can access to this drives using this way:

1. Download the bootdisk image from here:
http://download2.lsoft.net/NtfsFloppySetup.exe
2. Insert a disk and run NtfsFloppySetup.exe.
3. After finish the create of the booteable floppy disk, reboot your
computer from a new boot disk.

Now you will be able to see both drivers and copy the files from c:\ to d:\.

I will search more information to try to resolve the main problem (the hangup)

Have you changed it the size of the paging file?
With Service Pack do you have installed on your computer?

Try to press ALT+TAB when you see the message "loading personal
settings". Then if another window show up, click OK. If everything go
well, you will be able to logging again.

genarg-ga's suggestion to download the bootdisk image for floppy disk
is excellent.  Unfortunately, the NTFS reader on the bootdisk is
capable of reading NTFS volumes, but writing only to FAT volumes. 
Unfortunately, both my computer's hard drives are NTFS.

Im sorry for that. The program you need is PEBuilder.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

This will help.

Good Luck.

BTW, here you got nice Boot tools.
http://lists.gpick.com/pages/Boot_Media~Tools.htm

Hi,

To copy the data, you need to take off your drive and connect it in
another computer as slave. Doing in that way you can access the data
in any partition in your drive.

Make the backup of the data (you can use the Backup tools in
Acessories) and re-install the OS. If you think you don't need that
(if you really known the location of everty important file and data,
or you don't have ENCRYPTED FILES), just copy to another disk.

If the problem is just the hang-up, you can exclude (delete) the
folder (after the backup !!) of your profile located in c:\documents
and settings\%USERNAME% (%USERNAME%=IS YOUR USERNAME). The Win2K every
time have trouble with the profiles. Just remove the profile, that
will work in 80% of problems (The correct way to remove a profile
delete it in Control Panel >> System >> Users Profiles).

If you really want access the data by floppy disk, you need to create
one with Console Recovery, or boot the system by Win2KPro CD-Rom, and
when the options appear, press R (Repair).

More info see : How To Install and Use the Recovery Console in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;318752

The Console Recovery will start-up, and you can recovery your system.
But you just can access the data OUT off %SystemRoot%, if you have
explicitly allow that when the system was ok (if you don't do that the
access to copy data will be limited at c:\winnt)

Finally, I guess that you should take off the drive with problem and
access it in another computer to copy your data. You will gain a lot
of time using that solution, believe me.

See you,