Unusual Computer Problem

Factual Questions
1

I am running Win98 and am having an unusual problem. When I start it up, it will get as far as showing the desktop (but no icons) and then freeze - as if it is trying to find something or run something. When I reboot (I must do a hard reboot with the reboot button) it will then start. I have run MSConfig and removed almost (some things MUST be run) everything to no avail. I have started without a cfg file and without an autoexec.

I’m stumped. Has anyone else run across this?

Thanks to all who respond.

2

Can you boot into safe mode? (Turn the computer on, as soon as you hear the first beep hold down the F8 key (I think) and eventually a screen will pop up, tell it you want to boot into safe mode.) See if that will get you atleast into windows, from their we can troubleshoot.

I know I’ve seen this problem before, I just can’t remember how we fixed it. It’s probably a corrupt file somewhere.

3

Yes, I can do that. I stepped through and saw nothing unduly suspicious.

4

Is the machine completely frozen… as in the mouse pointer will not move at all? If not, can you hear the hard drive thrashing when it hangs at the desktop?

5

The mouse will move, but everything else is frozen. No, the hard drive does not thrash (no sound and the hard drive light does not flicker.) You can’t even do a soft boot with the old ctrl-alt-del. You must hard boot.

6

Go into safe mode and remove everything from your startup folder and then try a regular boot and see what happens.

7

Try adding the line:

BootMenu=1

to Msdos.sys. Then boot using the “logged” option. After a failed boot, boot to DOS and check C:/bootlog.txt (search for “fail”).
That should at least give you some idea where the problem is.

8

There is nothing in my startup folder.

9

Cool, I will try that tonight.

10

I’ve seen this before. For me, it was a corrupt sound driver. Reading the bootlog, the sound driver was the last thing it attempted to load, so I renamed the file and it booted up OK (though obviously without sound).

I then re-installed the sound and everything was fine.

I imagine it will be something similar for you; just follow the same procedure to fix.

11

Did you try using Restore? Isn’t that part of W98?

Did you try starting it with a boot log enabled & read it later & see what messages it gives?

12

I’ve got the same problem at home. Boots to Windows, then won’t display icons and freezes. Cold boot again, and it’ll usually work fine, at least until I have to turn it off. So normally I’ve got to boot twice just to get into my system…

Anyway, I’m gonna see if maybe there’s a corrupt driver laying around… Maybe we’ve got the same problem.

13

Yes, sounds exactly like what is happening to me. I will try the suggestion posted by PMH when I get home. I’ll update the thread after I do.

14

Well poo. Tried the suggestions posted (checking bootlog after an unsuccessful boot), and found two fail lines:

ndis2sup.vxd (which is in my windows\system directory)

and

sdvxd (no idea…)

So tried renaming ndis2sup.vxd and booting… of course Windows then decided to tell me bad things were happening. Not cool.

So anyone have any idea what’s with the sdvxd line? Or perhaps how I could get an uncorrupted copy of ndis2sup.vxd?

15

Both those are “normal”.

http://www.dibeneditto.com/resources/20011111/#loadfailed_ndis2sup_vxd

http://www.dibeneditto.com/resources/20011111/#initcompletefailed_sdvxd
Try comparing the last line of the “bad” bootlog.txt to the last line of a “good” bootlog.txt. If those are the same, we may need to attack this differently.

16

Well, oddly. adding BootMenu=1 to my MSDos.sys did nothing. I did not get a logged option.

HOWEVER, I DID find the problem (it seems.) While looking for bootlog.txt, I found RunOnce.txt. I renamed that, and it now seems to run! Hooray. Thanks for the help.

17

Alas, I was incorrect and spoke too soon. The problem is not fixed.

18

Here are a couple things to try to isolate the problem from two of the more likely suspects. Boot into safe mode and disable your sound card in the device manager. Reboot a few times to see if the problem still exists.

If the problem still exists, obtain the latest drivers for your video card, uninstall the current video card in the device manager, reboot and install the latest drivers for your video card.

If the problem goes away after the initial disabling of the sound card, try obtaining the latest drivers for your sound card, uninstalling the sound card in the device manager, and re-install the new drivers upon reboot.

A little more info on your hardware would help as well. What kind of video card do you have? Is it AGP or PCI? What sound card are you running? Do you have any other peripherals installed, either in PCI slots or integrated into the motherboard (i.e. modem, scsi card, etc).

19

Khadaji, a couple of other things you can do. In the RUN box type SFC, this starts system file checker & read what it says to do.

You can install W98 on top of itself as long as you can access the cdrom drive or whereever its setup files are.

I just got a laptop yesterday with w98 & this happening so I just reformatted it because of the scandisk report.

20

Thanks for the great suggestions all. SFC did not report anything bad.

I had an epiphany last night after going to bed and realized that I am a dolt. Chaning the BootMenu=1 did me no good 'cause I changed it in the wrong version of msdos.sys.

The log showed that LoadFailed = ndis2sup.vxd. I am now trying to figure out what ndis2sup.vxd does. I will update the thread when I do.