freezing up at splash screen

[violaboy]

I have a win 98 machine that is freezing up all of the sudden on the splash screen. No devices or software have been added. Will boot to safe mode. I've heard about the mcafee freeze up on when booting, but it's not on this machine. Tried unplugging the keyboard to check for a conflict, but was no help. Any ideas on what i can do or check? Would restoring the registry help? Thanks in advance.

 

[cdogg]

Have you tried running scandisk in safe mode? At an MS-DOS prompt, you could type scanreg. That'll take you in and should give you the option to restore the registry from a previous date. I would definitely explore all your options first before doing that. Also wouldn't hurt to backup your current registry.

Fastest way to do that is type the following at the DOS prompt:

regedit /e c:\regbackup_today's date

Of course, fill in today's date

 

[fedto]

If what cdogg suggested does not work, in safemode goto start>run and type msconfig.
uncheck process autoexec.bat and config.sys, click apply, then ok. It will prmpt for a reboot, go ahead.
IF this gets you into regular windows, you will need to go back into msconfig and the autoexec.bat and config.sys tabs.
Try taking the checks out of different things to see what has caused the system to halt.
It could be that the drivers for your sound card have become corrupted and halting the boot process.

 

[violaboy]

Good idea guys. I don't mind restoring the registry, but I think I'll wait on that one. Question about that... Would restoring the registry fix a problem with a corrupted file if that's what it turns out to be? I would say no and that the actual driver file(s) would need to be reloaded. I'll try your msconfig idea. In fact, isn't it possible to push the esc key at splash screen to see where the system has halted? Wouldn't that narrow down the possible files dramatically? I don't have the problem machine in front of me. Thanks for your help.

Mark

 

[cdogg]

You're absolutely right in saying that restoring the registry will not fix a corrupted file. I'm not too familiar with ME's boot menu, but I know in Win98 if you hit F8 during bootup, the boot menu gives you the option for Step-by-Step Confirmation. Choosing this option will give you a better idea of where the problem lies.

Again, I don't know if this is an option in ME. Perhaps fedto or someone can jump in and verify this...

If it's locking up at the splash screen, chances are it's a device driver of some kind. There should be a "bootlog.txt" file on your C: drive that you can view in safe mode. If it's a device driver, it might be listed in there.


~cdogg

 

[violaboy]

Thanks. I tried the step-by-step and it halted when loading the cd-rom device driver. Now, is it necessarily the driver of something else? In the bootlog.txt it says, "InitDone - TSRquery" as the last entry any ideas where to proceed from here. Should I unload the cd-rom from device drivers and let it reinstall? This is a remote computer, so I'm having to work with someone on this one. Thanks for your help.

Mark

 

[cdogg]

Actually, make sure you don't have a line to load a CDROM driver in your autoexec.bat or config.sys files. The only time you would need something there is using your CDROM in MS-DOS. For now, simply put REM at the beginning of the line that refers to the CDROM driver. You can edit those files in Notepad after booting to safe mode.

Safe mode by the way doesn't use autoexec.bat or config.sys when it loads which might explain why you able to boot to safe mode...

~cdogg

 

[violaboy]

Sounds good to me. I'll try remarking any entries I find. Any idea why this would all of the sudden start happening? I don't believe any software has been loaded recently. Thanks.

Mark

 

[violaboy]

Hey it worked. I have not a clue what changed, but unchecking it from loading has fixed the machine. Thanks for all your help.

Mark

 

[cdogg]

no prob, glad it helped...