Procedures for Win98 Hanging at Startup

Steps to take when you system hangs during startup of Windows 98.

Well I ran the "My computer does not start or shut down properly" category from "Microsoft's Troubleshooting" section here on my page. At first I thought, no this is thievery.  Then I remembered that many people don't want to sign-up to the Microsoft Knowledge Base and have to give out all the information of their lives. And remembered how all those neat Windows 95 troubleshooters disappeared after a while so I thought, what the heck, I have this information for when it disappears. Plus I have a felling that after 98 is around for a while only Internet Explorer users will be privy to it, as is the case with the download site. Of course I could be wrong. Better safe than sued??  Anyway, here's Part 1.

Can you start your computer in Safe mode?
1.Restart the computer.
2.Press and hold down the CTRL key as the computer starts.
3.On the Startup menu, choose Safe mode.

THEN

Enable the Diagnostic Startup option in the System Configuration utility.
1.Click Start, and then click Run.

2.In the Open box, type msconfig, and then click OK.

3.On the General tab, click Create Backup to back up your current system configuration files with System Configuration utility.

4.Click Diagnostic Startup, and then click OK.

5.When you are prompted to restart your computer, click OK.

6.On the Startup menu, choose Step-by-step confirmation.

7.When you are prompted to process the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files, press the ESC key to bypass the files. Press ENTER to load all other items.

IF NO LUCK THEN:

Are protected-mode drivers damaged or configured incorrectly?
1.Restart your computer.

2.Press and hold down the CTRL key as the computer starts, and then choose Safe mode from the Startup menu.

3.Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

4.On the Device Manager tab, disable any devices in the following categories:
Note: After you disable these devices, you may need to re-enable them in your CMOS settings. For more information about CMOS settings, contact your computer's manufacturer.

Display adapters
Floppy disk controllers
Hard disk controllers
Keyboard
Mouse
Network adapters
PCMCIA socket
Ports (COM & LPT)
SCSI controllers
Sound, video, and game controllers

To disable a device
a.On the Device Manager tab, double-click the category name, and then double-click the device you want to disable.
b.On the General tab, click to select the Disable in this hardware profile check box, and then click OK.
c.Repeat steps a-b for each additional device. Do not restart the computer until you have disabled all the devices you want.

5.After your computer starts, enable one of the devices you disabled in step 3. Enable the devices in the following order:

COM ports
Hard disk controllers
Floppy disk controllers
Other devices

To enable a device
a.On the Device Manager tab, double-click the category name, and then double-click the device.
b.On the General tab, click to clear the Disable in this hardware profile check box.
c.Click the Resources tab, and then verify that there are no conflicts listed under Conflicting device list. If a conflict is listed, one or more of the conflicting devices must be configured to use different resources. For information about how to do so, consult the device's documentation or manufacturer.
d.Click OK.

6.Restart your computer.
7.Repeat steps 4-5 for each device until your computer does not start correctly. When your computer does not start correctly, the last device you enabled is causing the problem.
8.Restart your computer in Safe mode, and then disable the last device you enabled. This driver or device may be configured incorrectly or may be damaged. Consult your device documentation for more information.

Has your registry recently been damaged?

To determine whether your registry was recently damaged, restore the registry from the previous day's backup.
To restore the registry from the previous day's backup

1.Press and hold down the CTRL key as you restart your computer.
2.On the Startup menu, choose Safe mode command prompt only.
3.Type scanreg /restore, and then press ENTER.
4.When you are prompted, select Previous Day's Registry, and then press ENTER.

IF NO LUCK THEN:

Scanreg did not work?

To determine whether the registry is damaged

1.Restart your computer in MS-DOS mode.

2.At the command prompt, type the following line, and then press ENTER to remove the file attributes from the registry backup:
c:\windows\command\attrib -h -s -r c:\system.1st

3.Type the following line, and then press ENTER to remove the file attributes from the current registry:
c:\windows\command\attrib -h -s -r c:\windows\system.dat

4.Type the following line, and then press ENTER to rename the current registry:
ren c:\windows\system.dat *.dax

5.Type the following line, and then press ENTER to copy the backup file to the current registry:
copy c:\system.1st c:\windows\system.dat

6.Restart your computer.

Note

The System.1st file is a backup of the registry created during the initial installation of Windows 98. Therefore, the Running Windows 98 for the first time banner appears and Windows 98 appears to be finalizing its settings.

If replacing the System.dat file with the System.1st file solves the problem, the problem may have been related to registry damage. To update the new registry, reinstall the programs and device drivers that you added after you first installed Windows 98.

If replacing the System.dat file with the System.1st file did not solve the problem, restore the original registry.

To restore the original registry

1.Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode.

2.Type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each line:
c:\windows\command\attrib -s -h -r c:\windows\system.dat
copy c:\windows\system.dax c:\windows\system.dat

3.Restart the computer.

IF NO LUCK THEN:

To restore the registry from the previous day's backup

1.Press and hold down the CTRL key as you restart your computer.

2.On the Startup menu, choose Safe mode command prompt only.

3.Type scanreg /restore, and then press ENTER.

4.When you are prompted, select Previous Day's Registry, and then press ENTER.

Note: If you restore a previous registry, you may need to reinstall any programs that were installed after the registry backup was made.

IF NO LUCK THEN:

 
Reinstall Windows 98 in a new folder.

To install Windows 98 in a new folder, you must run Setup from the real-mode command prompt rather than from a command prompt in Windows 98. If you run Setup from within Windows 98, you can reinstall Windows 98 over the existing installation, but not in a new folder.

Important

Disable any anti-virus software or incompatible memory-resident programs before you run Windows 98 Setup.

To install Windows 98 from a CD-ROM, the real-mode CD-ROM drivers must be loaded in the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files.

To determine if the CD-ROM drivers on your Windows 98 Startup disk work with your CD-ROM drive

1.Insert the Windows 98 Startup disk into your floppy disk drive.

2.Restart your computer.

3.At the command prompt, type the following line and then press ENTER:
drive: where drive is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive.

If you cannot access your CD-ROM drive using the Windows 98 Startup disk

1.View the Autoexec.dos file and note the line referring to the Mscdex.exe file.

2.Edit the Autoexec.bat file using a text editor such as the MS-DOS Editor. Add the MSCDEX statement you noted in the Autoexec.dos file, and then save the Autoexec.bat file.

3.View the Config.dos file and note the line referring to the CD-ROM driver.

4.Edit the Config.sys file using a text editor such as the MS-DOS Editor. Add the CD-ROM driver line you noted in the Config.dos file, and then save the Config.sys file.

 
To install Windows 98 in a new folder

1.Restart your computer.

2.Press and hold down the CTRL key as the computer starts.

3.On the Startup menu, choose Command prompt only.

4.Make a backup copy of the system files in case you decide to return to your original installation of Windows 98:

a.Type the following lines, pressing ENTER after each line:
attrib -s -h -r msdos.sys
copy msdos.sys *.xxx
copy autoexec.bat *.xxx
copy config.sys *.xxx

b.To return to your original Windows 98 installation later, copy the .xxx files listed above to their original names, and then restart your computer.

5.Run Setup from the original Windows 98 CD-ROM.

Note: When you install Windows 98 in a new folder, you must reinstall all Windows-based programs in the new Windows 98 installation.

IF NO LUCK THEN:

  • Back To The Top    • Back To Home