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

[Frank Whiteley]

Greeley
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Luey" <lueyb at jilau1.Colorado.EDU>
To: <LUG at lug.boulder.co.us>
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 6:54 PM
Subject: [lug] OT but desperate (win 98 won't boot)


> 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,
>
F8 during boot, start in safe mode.  (Sometimes you have to give it the
3-fingered salute during the boot to get F8 to work) Uninstall what you
think may have caused the problem or go into the Control Panel and check
System and look for multiple installations of drivers.  For example, I once
found the PS/2 mouse installed 15 times and, you guessed it, the system was
crashing sometimes when the mouse was scrolling.  You won't see these
multiple drivers under the normal boot.  You can also delete the HKLM enum
key in the registry and go through a bunch of finding, reinstalling hardware
routines.  If you don't understand this, seek further help.  I recently did
this on daughter2 Windows box when her USB digicam and USB Zip drive had a
BIG disagreement resulting in USBSTOR.VXD crashing.

It's not clear that what you've done has buggered Windows, however if you
can't get it into Safe Mode, that could be the case.  The slave drive option
works very well for recovery of the important stuff and may result in the
best overall recovery.  Burn that important stuff to CD also.

Frank Whiteley