Windows 98 not booting

My friend`s windows 98 will not boot past the windows 98 logo ...it sort of freezes.......there is a task bar loading very slowly, but even after 15 min it still has not booted up to sign in screen.

HELP PLEASE!!

 

Let us know if you can boot into Safe Mode (start tapping the F8 key as soon as you hear the POST beep or just before you would normally see Windows start to load).

In case it may be important, is it 98SE?

 

As far as I am aware Matt , it`s just win 98 , but I will check later today.

 

My friends PC finaly booted up ......after 25 min ....it`s taking on avarage 20-25 min to boot to sign in screen.
Any sugestions !

 

As a suggestion and from real life lessons.

I am thinking STRONGY that too much ( or conflicting ) stuff is loading at startup. This not only slows down boot up but the system in general. And also somethings may conflict in ( fight for ) memory causeing further problems. I would take a look at the Taskbar see what is loading at boot up.
Again from experience. Loading too much at startup may not save time.

BillyBob

 

Go to Start> Programs> Accessories> System tools and run Scandisk. After it finishes run it again.

Go to Start> Programs> Accessories> System tools and run Disk Cleanup.

Restart into Safe Mode.

How To:

• 
  1. Restart the computer.
  2. As the computer restarts, begin tapping the F8 key until the Windows 98 startup menu appears.
  3. Choose Safe mode from the startup menu, and then press Enter. Windows starts in Safe mode.

When in Safe Mode go to Start> Programs> Accessories> System tools and run Defrag. It may take awhile, but let it finish.

Once that is finished restart into Normal mode. Post back if it starts any faster or you still have problems.

 

I thought that I mentioned this before but see that it did not. I also use a program called "Startup Cop" which helps BIG time to control what loads at bootup.

BillyBob

 

The system is in fact Windows 98SE

I done all that ,and it is still loading to Windows 98 logo screen..its as if there has been a time limit installed ....it takes 15-20 min for it to load up.
there is no hard disc light flashing ......only when it does finaly boot up.
We can boot to safe mode no problem , but after re-start it is back to normal.......very slow.
My friend only has 512 ram installed, does he need more.

 

512MB of RAM is more than enough for 98SE.

 

Go into Safe Mode and go to Device Manager. First note if there are any problems listed, then open each one of the branches. If you see long lists of the same piece of hardware, Windows is having trouble loading the drivers for it. One or two will normally have several listings, like USB Root Hubs (there is one for each port).
You will need to find the correct drivers for that hardware or an updated version. Post back if this seems to be the reason, you should remove all the listings and install the new/correct drivers.

Another method might be to physically remove any added hardware including PCI cards, but major hardware, like the graphics, might be trying to load advanced drivers in normal mode, so major hardware cannot be ruled out either.

Matt

 

I`ll try that today Matt,and let you know,

Thanks

 

Sounds like some sort of hardware / software conflict.
See as a start if you cannot boot into safe mode
As windows starts to boot start tapping either F5 or F8 to get into safe mode.
You might try taking out one device at at time - start with the video driver
Make sure you have a win 98 ( se ?) disc handy

 

we can get into safe mode ok ........all we need to do now is find the problem,
and where to start ,and what to look for.

 

Try renaming the config.sys and autoexec.bat files in the root of the c drive. Reboot and see what happens. If it's better, there's something loading from them that's causing the problem. They can be edited in notepad but first we need to know if it helps or not.

If no joy, click start>run and type msconfig. Click the startup tab and uncheck everything except explorer and systray. Reboot again and see if it helps. If so, it's just a matter of going back into msconfig and re-checking some of them and reboot again. If no problem occurs, go back into msconfig and check a few more, reboot again. Do this until the problem occurs. Then it's just a matter of figuring out which of the last ones you checked are causing the problem. Trial and error.

 

Thanks for that ...............that`s much easier to follow , will give it a try and report back later.

 

Just a update on the few probs we were having ......we never got to the problem so we formated and installed windows xp