windows 98 stay in safe mode

A friend of mine just reformatted and installed windows 98 on his pc, now, his pc only run in safe mode, can't start normally. Any suggestion?

Thanks,

Howie

 

Welcome to the Boards.
I would say that you have a driver problem. Since this is a clean install, were the motherboard drivers installed? This needs to be done first.
If drivers are nowhere to be found, please post the make and model number of the computer, and assistance will be given to find them.

 

The problem should show up if you produce a bootlog.txt file.
When booting, press and hold down the CTRL key and enter
the number associated with producing a bootlog.
You should get a rather large .txt file which shows what is
loading and what has problems.
There is a handy free tool to analyse the bootlog file
here
regards

 

There are lot's of past posts in the archives on this subject should you still wind up scratching your head wondering what to do but this should help also:

http://www.windowsgalore.com/windows.95/safemode.htm

If you start up in safemode but not in Normal than the problem lies in one of the areas that are not loaded while in safemode....

To clarify:
Safe Mode is a troubleshooting tool for Windows, much like the command line switches were for Windows 3.X. Safe Mode allows access into Windows using only the most basic drivers.

1]Autoexec.bat and Config.sys are not loaded.

2]The main portion of the Registry is not loaded.

3]In Win.ini, the load= and run= lines are not loaded.

4]And, in System.ini, the [Boot] and [386Enh] sections are not loaded.

5]Windows uses it's own basic generic drivers and only uses those necessary to run minimally. A driver or drivers you use may be a problem. Check in "Device Manager " for problems.

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Win98 has a handy dandy tool that makes the above link suggested STEP BY STEP CONFIRMATION ELIMINATION a lot easier. This is called msconfig.

msconfig

This site is covered with the smeared-teary-toothpick-held_open eyeball prints of umpteen-thousands, looking for a way to pinpoint that startup/shutdown problem:

http://aumha.org/win4/a/shutdown.htm

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Please remember to update your post with the final outcome of your problem, whether good or bad. I hope the above nfo helps. If you have additional questions or need an explanation of something translated from tech/geek-speak to ordinary english just give a shout....

 

Thanks for all the help.

My friend was able to boot normally, but he had tried manythings, didn't know what exactly had helped.

howie