Only Boots To Splash Screen

An older Dell laptop running Windows 98SE will only boot to the Windows splash screen and then it stays stuck. It will boot to safe mode. I tried Safe Mode command line and trying an older registry restore. But still it only boots to the splash screen.

Any thoughts?

 

I would try the step by step confirmation, or select the logged option. If using step by step, you will know which driver/startup program is hanging you. The C:\bootlog.txt should end on the problem.

 

I am not too familiar with command line. Do I enter:

c:\>bootlog.txt and see what happens?

 

RayH,
Bootlog.txt is a text file created when you choose loged where you would normally choose safe mode. The problem is one of three things - either a driver is corrupted, windows itself is corrupted, or your anti-virus is scanning your entire hard drive before booting. It sounds strange, but I have seen the same thing happen, and fixed by removing the anti-virus from the autoexec.bat file.
To check if it is the anti-virus, boot to a normal command prompt (Not "Safe Mode Command Prompt "), and type, without quotes, "edit autoexec.bat ". If you see anything about your anti-virus there, type "rem " in front of it (note the space. Very important - otherwise you get error message). This means that the PC will think that line is a REMark, or a note for whatever purpose, and ignores that line.
If there is nothing there, or this doesn't fix the problem, then try reloading windows, over top of itself. Simply boot from a Win98SE CD, and accept whatever choices it goves you - other than making a backup of your existing OS - this is nothing more than a waste of over 100MB of space.
If this fails to fix the problem, then boot to safe mode, right-click on my computer, and select Properties. Then click on the device manager tab, and click on anything with a plus (other than dispaly adapter - if this was the problem, you'd be getting a BSOD) and delete anything that appears. Don't worry, all the drivers are still loaded, and will be re-loaded when you restart your PC.
If none of the above works/is applicable, write back, and I'll see what other ideas I can come up with.

Best o' Luck - you'll need it! Just kidding - I'm sure it'll be fine

 

Hang tight. The laptop is actually my belongs to my brother-in-law. It's going to be a tag team for a bit.