SillyDog701

[cdtrackman]

After a 2.5 day power outage (it sucked...) when we tried to boot up my dads computer, it booted up to the point where it asked us for our microsoft network login. Once we entered the password, or if we hit cancel, it did nothing: i.e. nothing was loaded, and hitting ctrl-alt-del showed only 'mdm' running, which was running before i started. If i hit the windows button to bring up the start menu, I get a kernel32 "illegal op - will be shutdown" error.
I have no idea what power outages do (we do have a surge protector...).

I dont know the specs that well, its my dads comp, and ive got to go soon, but i'll reply with the specs once i've had a chance to take the comp apart.

the basics are:
win98,
pent II 300mhz
128mb ram

Thanks for your help

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; YComp 5.0.2.5)

[sisyphus88]

Can you boot to the safe mode? Follow these instructions (from M$).....

To start a Windows 98-based computer in Safe mode, use any of the following methods.
Method 1

1. Restart your computer.
2. While your computer restarts, press and hold the CTRL key until the Windows 98 Startup menu is displayed.

NOTE: If you are using the EZDrive tool, press F8 instead of CTRL.
3. Select the Safe Mode menu option from the Startup menu, and then press ENTER.

Method 2

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Information.
2. On the Tools menu, click System Configuration Utility.
3. Click Advanced, and then click to select the Enable Startup Menu check box.
4. Click OK, click OK, and then restart your computer when you are prompted to do so.
5. Select the Safe Mode menu option from the Startup menu, and then press ENTER.

Method 3

1. Insert a non-bootable floppy disk in the floppy disk drive, and then restart your computer.
2. When you receive the "Non-system disk or disk error. Replace and strike any key when ready" error message, remove the floppy disk from the floppy disk drive.
3. Press F8, and then press F8. When you do this, the Windows 98 Startup menu is displayed.
4. Select the Safe Mode menu option from the Startup menu, and then press ENTER.

Method 4

1. Restart your computer in MS-DOS Mode.
2. From a command prompt type "win /d:m" without the quotation marks.

****

If you can't boot to the safe mode, your operating system is probably toast. You will have to reformat and reload the OS. Try to save your data by booting with your W98 start up disk and using the copy command. Or take out the hard drive and put it into another computer as a slave unit and copy the data to the good drive (if it can be read at all, that is.....).

If you do get into the safe mode, you can use the "Run>sfc" command to check your system files for corruption. See http://users.westelcom.com/rogersr/sfc.htm

Warning: If you replace any "corrupted" system file, you may also render certain programs inoperable (often, programs load updated versions of system files). SFC will reinstall the system files on your W98 CD-ROM, which might be an older version than what you have on the drive now). Before you overwrite any file, back it up and change the extension to "old" or something near and dear to your heart. SFC doesn't know a corrupted file from a changed one, so you need to make that determination.

Finally, dump your surge suppressor.... the power failure might have damaged it.

Regards,
Sisyphus

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT; en; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030311 Beonex/0.8.2-stable