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This is the Epilogue or what finally happened re: this problem:
"...when the boot process has hiccups, there is a hardware problem".
After the previously mentioned reseating of the data cable failed to provide a sustainable solution, i.e. the problem persisted, and a quick trip to the local PC vendor discovered that two caps (capacitors) on the motherboard had popped. The caps that are ok are flat on the top whereas the two that popped are not flat but raised in the middle of the cap that has an X or + scribed on its surface (what to look for when you inspect the motherboard).
To round out the symptoms of this problem when the default Win98SE system was able to boot up eventually that I suspect were related to the popped caps:
random system crashes via various actions like
1) mouse clicks,
2) screen freeze ups
3) mouse lock ups
4) Ctrl-Alt-Del lockups
5) rapid scroll-bar movement
Another symptom regarding my system configuration is that since my 2nd disk is a Linux RH, the hardware browser got stuck and hung Linux on dealing with the floppy disk drive (the led stayed on), and all of the lockups mentioned above occurred.
-- Tom
P.S. Motherboard is obsolete VIA chipsets no longer made, as is the SDRAM and Pentium III processor, so I'm probably looking at purchasing a whole new system. I may be able to scavenge my DVD-RAM, CDROM, floppy drive, HDDs, soundblaster card, and video card, but will probably need a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply and full tower.
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