Windows 98 Will not boot

[steph8293]

Hi all, I was wondering if you intelligent folks could help me with an issue that I have with my Compaq Presario Desktop 5032. A few days ago I went to reboot my computer and it showed a black screen with dots. So I manually shut off the computer and waited awhile before I turned it back on. I turned it back on it launched the compaq screen and then the Windows 98 screen. The hard drive ran for a few mins and then stopped. After several minutes the Windows 98 screen was still on. So I decided to turn it off and try again.. Still the same lovely Windows 98 screen.

I then got annoyed and decided to reformatt with the Quick Restore CD from Compaq (which has worked fine on previous occassions). After I reformatted I loaded a few of my usually applications back on and ran the windows update. This seemed to be working at first. Then after I went to reboot it for like the 4th time it decided it just wanted to display the lovely Windows 98 screen.

Well just for kicks I decided to format and leave only the stuff on the restore disk on the computer (thus not adding any of my software) just as a trial basis. Well sure enough it got stuck on the Windows 98 screen.

Any suggestions?

[vass0922]

It may help to physically remove hardware (sound card, modem, NIC) and try to boot up that way...

If none of that works if you have more than one memory module take one out.. if it still doesn't work swap for the other one.

Welcome to TechIMO

basketball sucks

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

When you are booting, don't know if you are familiar with dos) but press F8 to get the boot menu, go to logged. then after it freezes reboot go to the menu again (F8) then boot command prompt.

then type

Edit C:\bootlog.txt

if you scroll to the bottom it will tell you what device is locking it up if you post the last 4 lines from this file we could probably narrow it down a lot faster.

[steph8293]

ok i rebooted hit f8 and selected logged.. then rebooted and waited til it froze.. then rebooted hit f8.. went to command prompt only.. then it scanned for viruses and said pass 1-11 and i am not able to type in anything.

[vass0922]

If you're not able to type, you could boot up to a boot disk and look for it then.

What antivirus prog is loaded? Or is that the BIOS antivirus? Try booting with F8 and do a selected boot where you select which bits to boot, and see where it halts. Might be the antivirus prog is locking up, maybe due to a virus. Can you virus scan from a floppy?

Maybe you have a corrupted boot sector, or FAT table, which doesn't get overwritten when you reformat. Might need to delete the partition, repartition and then reformat and clean install.

Sometimes FAT table issues can stuff up the booting process. If you can boot to a floppy, try reading C:\ (dir c:\) and see if it can. Maybe you have corrupt sectors of something. Does the hard drive make any grinding noises when it's reading, or worse and clicking sounds?

Hope ya get it fixed.

Cheers
Mick

[ayuen]

Hi There,

You may want to try booting off a floppy. If you can, then your booting issues are most likely with your hard drive and Win98. Since you've already re-formatted a few times, try formatting your hard drive from a boot-up floppy and see if you can read the disk. If not, you may want to repartition, re-format and to a clean install.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Actually, you can try booting to command prompt safe mode since it might be one of your startup files that's causing the lockup.

If it's McAfee, disable the bootscan in autoexec.bat. I've run into this issue before, and that seems to fix it. Startup to "safe mode command prompt". Then type edit autoexec.bat. Put REM infront of stuff that looks like antivirus. Save, reboot.