Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations strongm on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Msgsrv32 problem

Status
Not open for further replies.

Stealer

IS-IT--Management
Jul 5, 2001
298
US
Hi All,

I have a win98 computer that gets the following error just before the icons should appear on the desktop.

"Msgsrv32 caused a general protection fault in module KRNL386.exe at 0001: 00000ec2"

The icons never appear on the desktop as well as no tack bar and start button. Same problem in safe mode.
So far I have removed all extra pci cards, did a memory check and virus scan.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Thanks
 
Boot to dos, try removing the c:\windows\win386.swp file.

Also, any idea when this started, and what changes might have been made?

Let me know if recreating the swap file helps.

Matt J.
 
Computer was driven in a car about 90 minutes. Prior to the trip, supposedly it worked fine. I'll try your suggestion and report the findings.

Thanks
 
I tried removing the win386.swp file but it had no effect.

Any other ideas?
 
Using msconfig, uncheck eveyting except exporer and sys tray.
Restart. It may be a program in startup causing the error.
Or Hold down the F8 key on boot and choose Safe mode to see if the error comes up. Safe mode doesnt load 32b drivers.
Are there any Device Manager alerts?

pc.gif

Jomama
 
The error still comes up in safe mode. So I can't get into msconfig.

Any more ideas??

Thanks
 
Tried reseating all cards plus the ram as well.

No effect.


Also I tried installing Windows over itself, but ran into problems there as well.

After I start the Windows set up it scans the disk for errors, then I get this message....

"Scan Disk detected an invalid filename entry on this drive but was unable to fix it. To fix this problem run Scan disk for Windows"

So that's great, except I can't get into Windows.

Any other suggestions??

Thanks
 
If there is nothing valuable on the drive in terms of data, boot off a 98 startup disk with cd-rom support. Format the drive, copy the win98 folder off of the 98 cd to the c drive, then run setup. If it still fails, then you have a hardware problem.

Matt J.
 
Never allow Scandisk to automatically fix anything; otherwise most of the time you will get away with it - when you don't you'll probably lose everything. Lost count on the number of folks who have lost everything.

What does Scandisk.log have to say for itself?
 
Try to boot to a command prompt and rename your config.sys and autoexec.bat.exe to .old (they're both in the root drive C:\).
Although, when you boot to safe-mode these files aren't loaded anyway (win98 doesn't need both these files "usually")
It may be you have an invalid entry in system.ini and/or win.ini (both in C:\Windows)
Scandisk's 16 bit version can't repair long file names and there are other limitations as well.
If you must save whatever data, try to manually edit system.ini and/or win.ini by hand from a command prompt(however you'll need to know 'what' to look for)..
Or you could use a boot floppy and overwrite the sys files
SYS C:
(msdos.sys problem may be the orig. problem as well)
Or use the deltree command and wipe the sys files and windows folder..
Do you want to do a full clean install instead?
Do you have win98 CD?

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.
 
Don't forget that system.ini and win.ini are backed up along with the registry in the rb0nn.cab files. You may get to the desktop with a simple 'scanreg /restore'.
 
Well I managed to get into Windows by installing it over itself. All the orginal files are still there so nothing got wiped out. That's the good news but now when Windows is running after a few minutes it crahses to a blue screen. SO I am just going to save all important files to another HD and format. Thanks to all wjo helped with this problem'

Happy Holidays!
 
Check out this one
Talks about the Dblbuff.sys file being the issue and how to change the setting in msdos.sys.

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top