Win98 Will Not Start...

[icallmedan]

My aunt has a Dell computer with Win98, she said when it starts up, the computer will go to the 98 startup screen and will freeze and do nothing, I don't know what to do to help her....I was thinking if she reset BIOS it might do something, or do you think she would need to reformat her hard drive? Do you think her OS is fried? Thanks.

[Cricket]

Try to find out what she did just before this happened. Did she update something? Did she install something? Did she open a weird email attachment?

Ask her if the computer will boot into Safe Mode (hit and hold the Shift key after the first boot screen switches to the next...system will boot straight to Safe Mode). Let us know what happens.

Cricket

[KHT]

Inspecting the bootlog.txt might give a clue. Hold down the Ctrl key during bootup. Select "logged". If the system fails to boot, the last item attempting to load on the log may be the problem.

Also, if you can boot to a dos prompt type "scanreg /restore" and choose a previously stored registry setting. As a last resort before reformatting from the prompt type "scanreg /fix" and hope this will give you a workable registry to boot from.

[icallmedan]

How would I get rid of the last logged "corrupted" file? If she can't get into windows?

[KHT]

It all depends on what the problem turns out to be.

Have you been able to boot to safe mode? If so, you could inspect the bootlog file, after allowing it to log a failed boot, and hopefully this will give you a clue as to what device or application is causing the problem and then uninstall it.

If you are getting to the Windows start screen, (windows 98, blue clouds right?) I tend to think it is a program in the start up menu that is the culprit hanging things up.

I know there is a key if held down while booting windows that allows windows to load without loading the programs in the start up menu. Is it shift???? Can`t remember, maybe someone else knows.

[icallmedan]

Is there a way you can do a forced start to safe mode?

[KHT]

Like Cricket said, hold down the shift key after the post.

(Still can`t remember which key or combo is used to bypass the program start up list )