Win98 won't start

I'd try a normal shutdown, leave off 2-3 minutes, reboot holding CTRL and request MS Dos Prompt only.  Navigate to your windows\command directory and type in
scanreg/fix

What did you last do prior to this problem in terms of changes or new installs?

Asta

How to Perform Clean-Boot Troubleshooting for Windows 98 (Q192926)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q192926

SYMPTOMS
When you upgrade your Microsoft Windows 95-based computer to Windows 98, the drive letter for the partition on which you are installing Windows 98 may change during Setup, and you may receive the following error message when Setup restarts your computer:

The following file is missing or corrupted:

D:\windows\himem.sys
D:\windows\dblbuff.sys
D:\windows\ifshlp.sys

Cannot find Win.com, unable to continue loading windows



CAUSE
This behavior can occur if Windows 95 is installed on a logical drive on an extended partition and you have a second physical hard disk installed in your computer that contains a partition formatted with the File Allocation Table 32 (FAT32) file system. Some versions of Windows 95 do not recognize FAT32 partitions. When you install Windows 98, Windows 98 is able to recognize the FAT32 partition on the second physical hard disk and then assigns it a drive letter. This may change the drive letter assigned to the partition on which you are installing Windows 98, causing Setup to generate the error message listed earlier in this article.

More here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q207600

It's difficult to acertain quite what happened before this problem occured, but it was suggested that the machine was switched on and then reset before it had booted.

It won't run the command prompt, it just hangs with the file corruption error message.

I booted it from a win98 floppy and then ran scanreg/fix, there were no error messages, but the c-drive became unreadable until a reboot from floppy again.

When you see this message
"Warning: Windows has detected a registry/configuration error. Choose 'Command prompt only' and run ScanReg."   You should be able to Choose 'Command prompt only' and press ENTER
if the scanreg/fix option doesn't work, try the
scanreg/restore option to choose a date/configuration you know last worked as a test.

More shortly.

Asta
 
 

Sorry, hit enter too quickly, here is the rest:
Type SCANREG/RESTORE at the DOS prompt, press ENTER, and ScanReg will start up, showing the different backups available. Highlight the most recent backup and press the 'R' key on your keyboard.  Reboot.

Do you hear any Beeps at reboot?  Does the hard drive sound "different"?  Did you modify anything in the BIOS?  Is the correct drive detected/shown (or drives) in the BIOS?  Does the system feel hot to the touch?  Fans working?  Perhaps problems with the Master Boot Record?

Asta

Command line switches for scanreg
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q184023

After you ran scanreg/fix  were there any messages that resulted?

http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q201655

Hmmm.

I would try opening the computer and removing and reseating the memory sticks.  When I get registry errors I have found that it is the memory that is playing up and this cures the problem for me.

And if you can run an anti-virus util from a floppy disk as well.  Go here

www.bootdisk.com and find the boot disk with f-prot on it and try that.

Classic sign and error message of a Klez infected system.

Don't know if it had a chance to infect the system so early in the setup stage, maybe an infected floppy was used?

Joe

I'd lay hard cash that the motherboard has gone flaky.  It's windows 98 so it's not really much trouble to do a re-install and see what happens.  If all else fails and you wind up formatting and reinstalling the OS after reseating the ram and any applicable cards and still have the same problems then you can bet it's the board or a memory chip gone south.  Probably the board though.

If this computer hadn't had any recent software additions and your sure that no virii have found their way onto the system then just reseat the memory as suggested and see what happens.  

If you can re-install windows on top of itself and still have the exact problems then it's a good bet it's the ram or board.  You can try pulling one ram chip out (assuming you have more than one in) at at time and restarting and see what happens.

my .02 worth of wisdom!  (hah!)
 
MiChAeL@  KD5RBO

If you have tried all the available options and still can't make way out of it, I suggest you to have a clean install. Though it is a tedious job to have all the softwares/drivers installed, but you can be assure of the fact that you are free of all those nuisance and error!

What you can do is, boot ur system using a boot disk, and rename the c:\windows folder to something else... say c:\winold then start the installation procedure. Make sure the new installation of windows system folder is again c:\windows.

Good Luck!

Deepesh

rurualman

Please read the below text

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Please change your answer to a comment

There are other comments posted above which may be the correct answer.  fdisk /mbr does not fix the FAT but rather the Master Boot Record.

For reasons stated below, proposed answer rejected

Computer101
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rhubarbtwo, any feedback for us so we can help you further in terms of help offered so far?  Without your involvement and feedback, it's tough to help you further.
Thanks,
Asta

With all information below has been taking in consideration
try to remove your computer cmos battery, the cmos on pnp feather may have jumped or move your active partition(s).

Boot up with an bootable disk (a-drive) again without the battery, this will clear any possible startups with cmos/bios.

Whether your computer gets to the a-drive or not, power
off the computer with the on/off computer switch.

Replace? (Good Battery)  or reinstall the cmos battery and turn on your computer and get into the cmos/bios config.

Within the config. use auto hard disk and the optimize option, save.

Power off again, and boot on with again the a-drive boot disk.

Then on the a: prompt, change into the c: promp, set paths
into: (c:\) type: path c:\windows\command and press enter


Type path to insure your see the path describe above and
key in fdisk/mbr and written above in other comments.

(Just in case your bios battery is bad and it can't keep your bios config in place.)  

rhubarbtwo: You have some great experts helping you, they however need feedback to help. Have you booted up with a bootdisk (you can get one at www.bootdisk.com) and then go to the C: prompt and do a dir/w/p and do you see a bunch of folders etc. that appear to be ok? Dave

Sorry for the delay, I didn't have time to get to the bottom of this problem, someone else took it over and they said there were disk errors.

From memory when booting in Safe mode I could not get to the command prompt. When I booted from a floppy I could access the c-drive and the folders etc appeared to be ok.

Much time has passed, many recommendations made; unclear if you've again tried accessing in normal mode and running the Maintenance Wizard to include cleanup/scandisk (thorough) and defrag.  Also unclear if when in normal mode, right-clicking the My computer icon, choosing properties and performance, if it shows that you have disks running in Dos Compatibility mode.

May also help to know what your config.sys and autoexec.bat file contain (if active/used).

Asta

Hello all,
I am Computer101 from Experts-Exchange and also an expert within this topic area. This question has been open a long time.  What I am going to do is allow feedback from the questioner and xperts.  If it is not resolved, I will delete or accept an answer based on the info I have been given, Experts, feel free to offer input.  I will monitor these questions for a period of 5-7 days and come back and evaluate.  I will have another moderator (who is also an expert in this topic area) look at the question also to ensure we do the right thing for this question.

Thank you
Computer101
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I guess you were right ... never found out for sure