Crazy weird WIN98 problem.... (hanging)

Factual Questions
1

Hi folks, I am at a loss here… maybe somebody can help.

I’ve got a PC here that is hanging when Windows tries to load. We can get through BIOS and everything is fine, and it doesn’t lock up until after the Windows 98 splash screen.

What happens is, the desktop background will load, then the Task bar will flash for a very quick second, then it hangs.

Task Manager shows nothing running. the machine responds to keystrokes (Ctrl/Alt/Del, etc) and the mouse moves.

But it just sits there forever. Any ideas?

2

Safe mode, then Start -> run -> msconfig
Disable everything in the startup folder and the Run key. Reboot, and turn each entry back on one at a time (rebooting after turning each on) to isolate the culprit.

3

Damn, should have mentioned… will not go into Safe Mode. Same problem, hangs in same place.

4

Hold down ctrl after the splash creen to bypass the startup folder. See if that will let you boot into safe mode.

5

Didn’t work.

I notice that if I strike up CTRL/ALT/DEL right away, I can catch it withone item in it’s list. So I assume it’s going OK, so I hit escape, then quickly C/A/D again, and there is a different single program listed in Task Manager. It’s not building a list though, just one item replaces another.

The the task bar flashes, and it stops DEAD. The HD stops crunching, and task manager shows nothing running, so I can’t even cancel anything.

I can however get into DOS and move around and copy files alright. Would it help to empty C:\Windows\Start Menu*.* via DOS?

6

I had the same problem with Win98, after installing new drivers I belive it was. (This was a ways back, I’ve upgraded to WinXP since then.)

I ended up using the task manager to kill explorer.exe, then the ‘run’ (?) command available in the task manager to bring up… Errr. I know I tried bringing up explorer again, with that method, but I think I ended up having to use it to bring up msconfig to edit my startup files.

Sorry I couldn’t give much more detail on what I did to fix it, but it’s been long enough I’ve forgotten.

<< Bad computer! Sit! Staaaaayyyy… >>

7

I forgot to note: killing explorer meant that I had to hit crtl-alt-del at a very precise time: too soon, and it wouldn’t be there. Too late, and well, it’d freeze.

8

Bring up the boot menu during start up and select “logged mode”.

It will produce a file called bootlog.txt in the boot drive’s home directory.

Boot into MSDOS next and view that file. Look for failures of any sort and pay special attention to the last things loaded before it quits.

That might suggest bad dlls, wrong device drivers, etc. that may be causing the problem.

9

Well, here’s my workaround for the archive’s sake…

This is really quite an old PC, and the owner knows he’s going to need a new ones sooner than later. With that in mind, I removed the hard drive, and switched the jumpers to make it a slave. I then installed it in another old machine I had lying around as the secondary drive.

I booted up the ‘new’ machine from the good drive, and started copying over all his files (C drive to D drive).

Now, I plan to go back and simply format the original disk © and re-install Windows clean. If it works, great, I can copy his files back simply enough (D to C). Or perhaps I will clean up the new master drive I copied his files to and install that as his drive now.

Or I’ll go tell him to buy a new PC, and install his old drive as a secondary and let him access the files at will.

10

Get to the boot menu by tapping F8 during the POST (while the manufacturer’s screen is displayed) until the boot menu is displayed. Select Command Line and hit enter. At the C:\ prompt, type SCANREG /RESTORE and hit enter. This will run the registry restore control panel, which should display several save points. Select one that corresponds to the date of the last good boot, or try the oldest one if you don’t remember. This will restore from a saved backup of your registry, and hopefully it will allow you to get into Windows.

.

11

instead of formatting the drive just reinstall windows to the same directory, after that you may have to re-update media player or something but it should fix windows and maintain the registry links to all the installed programs.