Start up problem with Windows 98

bmaxi

I'm having start up problems on a fairly venerable Dell computer. It will load the OS up to the Windows logo but no start menu or desktop. I've tried to get in to safe mode by using f8 but no joy. Any ideas?

Ruu_Old

Does there sound like the hard drive is doing anything after the logo is showing? Any text displayed on the screen or anything else?

bmaxi

Ruu wrote:

Does there sound like the hard drive is doing anything after the logo is showing? Any text displayed on the screen or anything else?

Yes it continues intermittently. I can get in to the set up utility but nothing to change there

sparkicks1

this could be just with xp (as i cant really remember 98 that well) but if your still getting something up just not your start menu or desktop mabey explorer isnt started. if you do ctrl alt del task manager then go to file and new task enter "explorer" and press enter (without "")

Ruu_Old

^Yep think that is with XP only. Have you got a bootdisk, OP?

tadgh

Try the following
Start computer in DOS mode (F8...Command Prompt Only) Then run:
Scanreg /restore
chose a restore point, wait for restore to occur and reboot.
Might fix the problem

bmaxi

Thanks for the replies lads, holding down ctrl+alt+enter has got me into safe mode I'll investigate from there and let you know how I get on. One strange thing showing is "plug and play configuration error" because there are no p+p devices attached, maybe it's just going senile.

bmaxi

OK, I've discovered a disabled display adapter in Device Manager, I'm assuming this is the problem as I can't find anything else but I can't enable it from safe mode. Any suggestions?

kmb

maybe you can delete it in save mode?and reboot?it should find the driver then.
Do u have another graphics card to try?

Also maybe you can go into settings/advanced/adaptor/and change it to a vga 800 x600.
And reboot.

Another option is if you have a win98 cd backed up on computer,you can go through dos and reinstall windows but keep the old files when asked and you wont lose anything.

Try a scandisk on the drive.



***When you see the win98 logo does the bar stop moving below it?Normally with graphic card driver probs you get a vxd message
regards kieran

bmaxi

tried all that.managed to delete the adapter & reinstall with driver but no joy there also seems to be an issue with the cd rom. I'm inclined to think this " plug + play configuration error" might have something to do with it but I've no idea what that means.

Capt'n Midnight

to do a full check the drive from DOS - the /surface means it will take some time.

c:\>scandisk /all /autofix /surface

a bit late now but if you could get to the dos prompt you could have gone
CD Windows
edit system.ini
update the line to say
*displayfallback=1
save/exit
Reboot in normal mode and you will have VGA for that boot, to allow you to tweak the video settings.

If you adjusted the refresh rate too high or you choose too high a resolution or swapped monitors (or had a strange monitor failure) you might be able to get into windows but not see anything on the screen, Running LCD's above 60Hz sometimes does this

bmaxi

Many thanks lads, followed your suggestions and managed to get up and running in Windows again. Can't exactly pinpoint what cured it (I'd like to pass the solution on) but it was definitely something suggested here. The p+p configuration error message hasn't gone away but I'll live with that. Thanks again.