windows 98 pc reboots by itself repeatedly

[johngav]

Hello everybody

I have an old 800MHz computer with windows 98 just to receive mail and keep a small database .The last few days , the computer restarts by itself after a few seconds of booting. I don't think its a virus issue (windows 98) and even if it is i have no time to complete a scan since the pc reboots before the scan ends . I also thought it could be an overheating problem but the temp seems normal in BIOS. I really need to fix the pc even for just one time in order to copy a few important files from it

Any ideas?
Thanks for your time

[glc]

Does it run far enough to get into the boot menu (pressing F8) and try safe mode? If not, you have a hardware problem - power supply, ram, something like that. If you can get it into safe mode, its most likely a software issue.

If all you want to do is recover some files, you can remove the hard drive and slave it into another computer or put it into a USB housing.

[johngav]

thanks for the reply glc

I tried safe mode and the problem seems to disappear.
I have two more issues , if you could help

1. How can i enable printing while in safe mode ?
2. Is there any way to try and fix the full mode without formatting and reinstalling windows?

Question number 1 is far more urgent!!

Thanks again

[glc]

No drivers load in safe mode, so you can't print.

Best way to try to get normal mode working is using msconfig in safe mode
to do selective startups - and uninstalling programs. Process of elimination.

[johngav]

I tried selective startup and i managed to enable printing without reproducing the initial problem of self - rebooting. Another problem occured though!
The mouse is inactive.I guess i'll have ot find some startup option in the msconfig to activate it ...Any idea which one might that be?

Thank you

[glc]

Now it's time to figure out exactly which startup item is causing the reboots.

[GaryRouth]

While you're troubleshooting: you might want to go into Safe Mode again to run your full-system malware scans (set everything on as thorough settings as you can). Viruses like to start at startup too (especially those that like to dial home).

If you need to identify a startup process, there's handy process listings at AnswersThatWork and at Sysinfo:
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Taskl...s/tasklist.htm
http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

Most "generic" mice don't need a special driver. I think the Logitech mouse background processes usually start with an "L", but I haven't seen one for a while - so that's rather fuzzy. Check through your startups, using the lists from the links above, and you'll probably get things straight again.

Best of luck
. . . Gary


Hi there glc