System goes through POST, but instead of starting Win2K, only a flashing cursor appears. Suspect corrupt boot loader. Boot with Windows 98 diskette image on my utility CD. File system just happens to be Fat32! Just for kicks, run Winnt.exe to see what it will do. Allow to run for a few seconds, but abort (Ctl-Alt-Del) during file copy bar graph screen. System comes up with OS selection list! Manually select top item (Windows 2000 Professional) and boot system successfully.

Apparently, a system recovery was begun, but failed at some point. The Boot.ini file had some strange entries:

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=50
Default=C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
C:\ = "Previous Operating System on C:"
C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT = "Windows 2000 Installation/Upgrade"

After correcting, the file looks like this:

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

These Microsoft documents may have helped if I hadn't accidentally gotten it to work:
How to troubleshoot the "NTLDR Is Missing" error message in Windows 2000
How To Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows

 

 

( Win2K Boot Loader Boot.ini Pro Professional )