Computer Hangs- Explorer Not Responding

[rogerfixit]

Win98 starts to normal desktop. Click 'Start' or any icon- computer hangs - mouse still works but no response. May get start menu to come up after 2 minutes or so but cannot go anywhere from there. Eventually, get 'blue screen' System busy... and then "unstable.."
Physically removed all components except harddrive, video card, mouse & keybd.Same problem. Subbed video card; swapped memory- same results. Also swapped IDE cables. Unit works with different harddrive and in Safe Mode. Set original HD as "D" and ran Norton AV; scandisk and defrag. Also ran WDDiag on original HD- no errors

 

[Mulga]

Major Windows problem by the sound of it, try booting to Command Prompt and running scanreg /restore, this will give you the option to restore the registry to an earlier, hopefully good, configuration. You could also try running System File Checker in Safe mode, just type sfc in Start > Run and hit OK. This will check for corrupted system files and give you the opportunity to restore individual files from your installation CD All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.