It's reported on a BSOD as a "hard error" at the top of the screen. Lots of text about recent changes etc [there haven't been any]. I don't recall an error code but next time I get the screen I will check. I think it said something like "unknown error 128" but that probably isn't the number.
Once, it got into Windows and then crashed with a "hard error" message and a window that counted down unitl it rebooted. I think after the reboot it was OK, and after subsequent shutdowns and hard reboots a few minutes later.
Hours later however I got a system freeze on boot.
I should have added this to the original post perhaps:
Other symptoms [I thought these were due to a loose cable, but perhaps not]: the system sometimes freezes on one of the Windows loading screens [sometimes on the black and white on with the dotted ribbon across the bottom, sometimes on the next one].
Ah this "freeze" had finally resulted in:
Disk I/O error: Status = 8001
Disk I/O error: Status = 8001
Disk I/O error: Status = 8001
Disk I/O error: Status = 8004
and some time later [again long enough to believe it was finished or frozen]:
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\winnt\system\config\system
🙁
I wonder if it's using large hard drives with 2000. On other completely different systems I found it sometimes craps itself and loses the entire file system.
Hmmm come to think of it, my son runs XP on a 4coredual-SATA2, an almost identical board. His system keeps giving these kind of errors, we've installed XP twice already. In his case I thought it was due to him thrashing the system, installing too much stuff, filling hard drives beyond sensible capacity and generally running the thing into the ground. In my case - I'm only using it for Warcraft 3 [overkill but such a smooth experience when it works!].
