One more thing…
You could also try:
C:>scanreg /fix
Yeah, I’m good 
Best of luck sunfish…
Mac OSX? Damn, been trying to get my hands on a mac, my dad won’t buy me one yet.
Anyway, if I were your friend I’d make sure everything is backed up (does MS-DOS work?), on diskette if necessary (hey, it’s a dire situation), then I’ll dump the HDD and get a me a new one.
10 years of dealing with similar crap on my comp has told me this: There is a 1 in 100 chance (this number has decreased considerably over the years, but is stil not negligible) that a comp you buy, no matter how advanced or new, will screw up on you and refuse to work. it happens with plants, it happens with vacuum cleaners, and it happens to some people i know.
why don’t you try calling HP support instead? i have installed device drivers only to find they’re screwed-up. call HP and ask them to give you the latest version on CD.
There is no evidence to suggest - atleast yet - that the hard disk has failed. A surface scan using scandisk has already been recommended, which would be a first step in determining whether the hard disk is failing.
Because even the latest version of HP drivers on CD will not restore her computer to a working state. Please read the OP, and the responses following the OP, carefully before posting replies.
My first impression is Windows 98 is acting funny because of device conflicts. Detach the printer, then boot the machine for it to config the system.
astro and Urban are probably on the mark. It is most likely an IRQ conflict. I like the idea of removing cards for starters, and replacing them after the install.
If this works (and I think it will), before you replace the cards, boot to Safe Mode and go to Device Manager. You will see all the devices that were ever installed - printers, monitors, mice, etc. Delete all devices you no longer have in the machine or attached to it. Reboot normally. Shut down.
While cards_left > 0
Reinstall a card.
Reboot.
Shutdown
End_while
I’d start with the sound card.
Sunfish - Let us know what youve done and what worked or didnt work. I like to learn from others mistakes.
As far as the stability of any OS goes. Whenever Ive had serious conflicts with or within the OS Ive found that a re-format and re-install was the best way to go. Even if you do get this bug worked out you may have other problems down the road.
Try the suggestions offered in the thread so far.
FWIW - I`m running win98 on a 400MHZ machine. ( Two hardrives, two printers, one scanner, a DVD rom/CDRW burner, a CD rom, a CD burner, a newer video card, a newer sound card, a cable modem, a 1394 firewire card, a network card, and a handful of USB connected devices. 18 months with no problems.)
Either way, you should be able to work through this problem and have a good working machine when you`re done.
There comes a point when you’ve wasted too much time and reformat is the best way to go.
One opion is to deltree windows and reinstall with your data intact.
I still think it is the printer, because there was no problem before installing the printer.
:smack:
Maybe you want to try disabling the parallel port from BIOS if you have no other uses for it.
As per whuckfistle’s request 
, an update on what happened today.
First, let me thank everyone who chimed in with helpful suggestions. My friend is a grad student who does not have a lot of cash to spare right now for upgrades, etc., and has some funky specialized software he runs besides, so upgrading to a different OS is not in the cards. Somehow we are going to make this machine functional again, I swear it. (FWIW, it’s a 1.2 GHz Micron Millenia, about 3 years old… and it originally came with Windows ME, which he had replaced with Win98SE when ME got out of hand.)
When I got started today, my friend said he wanted to try backing up some more files before anything else. Following astro and Urban Ranger, I just unplugged the printer that started this whole mess, and was able to get Windows started in safe mode from the boot disk (unlike my experience the other day). Most of the files my friend wanted to retrieve were much too large for a floppy, and the CD-RW and Zip drives were unavailable in safe mode, so… I booted into DOS and renamed c:>windows to c:>winblip, then crossed my fingers and rebooted with the Win98 CD inserted. This time, Windows went through setup successfully and started up completely(!), although the screen still looked off-kilter, and a number of programs were no longer functioning properly (as Q.E.D. had predicted). I thought about trying to revert to an older version of the registry, but I was worried about the machine staying up long enough to get the backups done.
Unfortunately, I spent a lot of my time then trying to get the rest of his files off the machine. The software for burning CDs had gotten fouled up, leaving the Zip drive as the only thing accessible for backup. Copying was very slow as the machine started to hang while copying, and I had to reboot repeatedly while doing so. However, I did not have a repeat experience with being unable to get into Windows at all - today, Windows launched every time I rebooted, albeit not fully cooperative.
Once I was finished copying off the last of my friend’s key files, I booted into DOS to run a surface scan with scandisk… and that’s how I left it running. At the pace scandisk was going (through the 40GB drive), it should be done around 6 AM tomorrow, maybe. 
Given my incomplete success in restoring things to normal after a successful re-install of Win98, over the weekend I will try reformatting and re-installing everything from scratch, following astro’s recommendation to add cards and peripherals incrementally to avoid any potential conflicts.
Thanks once again for all your help - Dopers rock!
Is it possible he downloaded XP drivers for the printer , or was this a disk that he got with the HP ?
Declan