I know there are some computer saavy folks on this forum, so I thought I would try here first. I have an old PC, running win98, and it locked up on my GF the other night. She was trying to be helpful and shut it down by switching off the power strip. When I found out about this and went to turn it back on, it gets as far as the windows98 screen in startup and then freezes. I started it with Norton and had it fix all the problems it could find, but it still does the same thing. Anyone have any idea how to get it up and running, without dumping my HD contents to my laptop and reformatting? Thanks in advance to any help.

 

Did you try to boot it into safe mode, then run system file check? If you can get into safemode Try it: click start>go to and click programs> accessories>system tools and click system information. Then click tools>system file checker. Have your 98 disk handy, you might be missing some "critical" .DLL's or a VXD or 2. Just follow the screen directions. Was the system overclocked in anyway?? Excessive heat can and usually is a component killer. Another question, how much dust/dirt is inside the case???Too much around the fans and such can restrict cooling airflow. Maybe the processor just had it's last go-around w/winblows.......or the hard drive crashed......
Could be anything but look into the first 2 things for sure

 

what was your g/f doing?....maybe she did something silly? did you goto History in your browser, maybe she downloading something that loads at start up but it wasnt for Win98, maybe a WinXP prog.....I know its a far shot, but if it was working before she was on it, and not after, that seems like a logical solution....

 

MNboy you need the windows 98 rescue disk that came with the window 98 CD. Or, have a rescue disk that you made during the install. There's a possibility you could try someone else's 98 rescue disk.

Based on law of averages, you windows 98 kernel file is crap, or best situation vxd *multimedia drivers *files are corrupt.

You could remove the drive and install it in a working computer. If the drive was FAT then info could be easly removed from it.

You could try to install another windows OS on the disk without formatting it. You would need a gig or two to install the OS. Select FAT16 or 32 during install. good luck.

 

there is also a possiblitity of the hd being fried....