I've never seen anything like this before.. I had an old computer running Windows 2000 and since I bought some new hardware for myself, I thought I'd chuck the old 20GB HDD Win2k was on in my old machine and it'd be a quick upgrade.

I turned it on and it starts, BIOS recognises everything fine and it starts to load Windows but then I get a weird blue screen (different than normal) saying something along these lines:

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If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, please restart your computer (tried). If not, check the following.

Check your computer for viruses (done), remove any newly installed hard drives or controllers (read below) and run CHKDISK /F to check the disk for any errors.
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Restarting didn't help, there aren't any viruses (it is checked regularly) and remove any new hard drives, well there is only one in there and that's the Win2k drive. I really was hoping I wouldn't have to reinstall as backing up the data from there is not gonna be an easy or fun task, does anyone have a solution to this or is a reformat/reinstall the only solution? I've cracked out the dusty old Win2k disc and tried to repair the install a few different ways with absolutely no success. No change at all in fact

Any suggestions greatly appreciated

what do you mean by upgrade...do you mean install linux?

No, hardware upgrade. I use linux on my main PC but this Win2k box isn't used by me and it needs to stay with Windows 2000...

So you didn't change anything, right ???.
Go take it out again - whatever it was ...

Reboot Win and hit "F8" straight away - if you get the option choose "Safe mode with prompt".
If it comes up, enter the "chkdsk /f" there. It'll complain about being in use, and ask if you want to schedule it on next reboot. Reply "y", and reboot it.

Be aware that this can break things - the /f is to tell it to fix errors if it can (cross linked pointers say).
No confirmation.

If you can't even get that far, I'd say you are SOL, but try the ntfsfix tool from ntfsprogs (Knoppix should have it). It'll force the check on the next boot of Win.

Maybe I didn't explain myself properly. I have Computer A with no disks in it and Computer B with a disk runnning Windows 2000. I took the hard disk out of Computer B and put it in Computer A and was planning on booting it into safe mode and installing the correct drivers for the different mobo etc.

I have since been informed that my plan was never going to work due to the old drivers still being installed (but I thought in safe mode they wouldn't be used?!?). I'll just chalk it up to me being used to linux not Windows and have to do some drive shuffling in my new computer to back up the data and format/reinstall

I have a friend that has a setup and uses win2k and win98 and does what you are talking about. He is a linux user and a windows user and he owns 20 computers and tinkers with them all and just swaps drives. All it really boils down to is windows whining because it wants to only be on one computer (because of the EULA), I do assure you it is fixable my friend has all his drivers for all his computers on his harddrives.

Another thing: disconnect everything you possibly can, turn off in the bios everything you can. Then add everything 1 at a time so the OS don't get culture shock as I like to call it.