btkrnl.sys hangup on system start

[flobear]

Hello everyone. First time poster here.

I've done a cursory search and haven't found much on the web as well as nothing pertinent on your site, so I apoligize if my question has been addressed already.

I attempted to remove one of my two CD-Rom drives today. Upon rebooting, my machine froze during windows startup (it successfully detected the hardware). I next tried to reboot in safe mode and I discovered that when the system was loading all of the system files, it stopped and hung up on "btkrnl.sys". Next I put the CD-ROM back in and tried to reboot again. Same results. Next I tried to boot off the CD-ROM with my windows CD and the system freezes again upon startup (the caption at the bottom reads "Setup is starting Windows")

Any ideas?

To summarize:
1. Removed 1 of 2 CD rom drives
2. Machine froze during reboot
3. reboot in safe mode stalled on btkrnl.sys
4. put CD rom back in - stalled in same way
5. boot of CD - failed on windows startup.

I appreciate all of your help and thank everyone in advance.

[Gecko]

[flobear]

Thanks for the idea Gecko.

I just tried that and no success.

[flobear]

I just tried removing my D: drive with similar results.

Then I reattached my D: drive and disconnected my C: drive. Similar results

Booting off the CD fails at the same place.