[Stealth]

it's actually my friend's computer, i can't figure out what the hell's wrong with it.  it's an old compaq, running windows 98.  it loads up the OS, loads up the desktop image, then flashes the taskbar (with the "START" menu) for a split second... then everything disappears except the desktop image (which remains on the screen and nothing else happens) . i CTRL+ALT+DEL and no processes are running at all.  if i CTRL+ALT+DEL right before the taskbar flashes for a second... it shows EXPLORER running.

same thing happens in safe mode.

any suggestions?

[Falcon]

Reinstalling Windows always works for me although that is a last resort measure.

[Stealth]

well yeah i told him that, if worst comes to worst i'll just hook his HD up as a slave on my PC, and transfer all his crap, then format his machine, and copy his files back after i reinstalled the OS, but there's got to be something SOMEONE can do!

[Knight Templar]

Looks like you just said it..

[Falcon]

Format? No I usually just reinstall. The reinstallation just overwrites files. No big problem. To much work to format. Formating is evil :devil:

[Stealth]

formatting does take care of all the useless crap that's left over on his computer.  he's only got a 5 GB hard drive, AND it's partitioned into like 6 800MB chunks...



Knight_Templar:  from what i remember you weren't too good with computers, so i will just ignore what you said

[Knight Templar]

uh..huh...

[Falcon]

Easier way to erase open the Hard Drive up :devil:

[Stealth]

yeah well i'd rather not do anything rash if i can help it

[Falcon]

Your friend can just buy a new one it was probably dying anyways. And probably your friend is stupid to do that much partitioning.

Here is some ideas for his Hard Drive:

1 Big paperweight
2 Frisbee
3 Christmas ornament
4 Ball
5 Losenge
6 Earing

I'll try to think of more.

[01010]

You need to throw it out of the window.

[Falcon]

I think mine was better plus throwing it out the window is a hazard to your neighboor. Wait....

[Stealth]

yeah... just to give you an idea of how old his computer is... this 5 GB hard drive was partitioned like that for way back in the day when drive size was limited.

still don't know why whoever partitioned the drive did it in like 6 800MB portions, but oh well...

[Falcon]

Originally posted by Falcon
Your friend is stupid.

[IceFire]

I have a stack of used leftover 1-5gb hard drives in the basement from a cleanup job I did once.  They are a dime a douzen - new drive with a bazillion times more space would be cheap.  

One thing to check is run a bootlog.txt output (use the F8 command and access this feature) and then use a bootdisk (or F8 if it works to go to a command prompt) and view the file.  See if there are problems or find where it stops.  I once found a stray DLL file in the fonts folder causing such a problem (could be similar).

I'd still ultimately suggest a reformat...reinstalls are not a good idea from experience.  Especially with Win95/98.

[Drew]

meh, his registry is probably forked. somthing is closing explorer.exe after it loads. scince your on 98 explorer.exe should just reload.... but if it isnt...hmmm

[Kamikaze]

Tell him to stop using a POS OS series like Win9x.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by IceFire

One thing to check is run a bootlog.txt output (use the F8 command and access this feature) and then use a bootdisk (or F8 if it works to go to a command prompt) and view the file.  See if there are problems or find where it stops.  I once found a stray DLL file in the fonts folder causing such a problem (could be similar).

well i did the F8 command and tried booting in safe mode, etc... but i also tried the "LOGGED" boot, which apparently saves to bootlog.txt... but then when it loaded up, (and froze, and i rebooted), i pressed F8 again and went to "COMMAND PROMPT"... but i couldn't find the bootlog.txt.  i looked everywhere, so either it saves the bootlog.txt to some weird location, or i dunno :-/