[lug] OT but desperate (win 98 won't boot)

[D. Stimits]

Ben Luey wrote:

> This is totally off topic, but I'm desparte -- I destored a friend's
> windows '98 computer:
>
> Current problem: Computer hangs on startup (at the splash screen) I tried
> restoring old registery backups, but no luck. So since I had tried
> everything else, I decided to install a new copy windows 98 on the hard
> drive. Booted off the cd, told windows to install to a new directory. The
> install went fine.  Then it said rebooting windows 98 and then it crashes
> at the splash screen just as before. What could be wrong / how can I fix
> this without formating the hard drive and deleting everything.
>
> How this happened: All upgrades of IE5.0 caused the computer to hang right
> before showing the taskbar and loading the icons. I didn't know this and I
> installed the encryption patch for IE50. Rebooted and I got this problem
> of a hang with a blank screen (background color) but not icons or taskbar.
> So I rebooted again and the computer worked (but IE still didn't work for
> https) computer seemed fine and I turned on file sharing, restarted as
> instructed and got the same problem. Then I rebooted and the problem
> didn't fix itself, so I went in to safe mode and turned off file and
> printer sharing, but same problem. If I hit f8 at startup and did step by
> step confirmation, then the computer crashed when it started loading the
> registery settings (first thing it did). I then restored an old copy of
> the registery by running scanreg /restore from a safemode command prompt.
> The computer then crashed at the splash screen for win98 if I did normal
> mode -- safe mode still worked and reflected the changed registery. I went
> back to the original registery settings and it still got hung at the
> splash screen.
>
> There must be some corrupt file that even the fresh install of windows is
> using and causing the crash -- any ideas. My friends has all this data on
> the drive and a usb network card so no networking support in safe mode and
> no cd-burned and its a mess.
>
> Thank you very very much for any help / ideas / suggestions, hints on
> where to get help, etc, etc,
>
> Ben
>
I'd remove all hardware devices that are not strictly needed. E.G., 
remove the sound card, any devices that might be in a removable slot, so 
on. In the BIOS during startup, disable the USB. Tell the BIOS if 
possible it is not plug-n-play compatible (it might already be set as 
not). Minimize all hardware interactions possible, especially printers. 
In whatever mode possible, set resolution to 640x480 and only 16 colors. 
Try again with everything as uncomplicated as you can.

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi DOT com

PS: Just don't forget what you change :>