Apathy

Ok, so i come home from school today early at 12:00 because we had a half day, and im all set for extra hours of Diablo (lets face it, im addicted). Oddly enough i come home and find my computer in 800x600 resolution. I'm like, ***? So i reboot like i usually do when i come home from school and walk upstairs for some food. I come back down, and my computer says 'It is now safe to turn off your computer'. 'Ha,' i said, because i had not seen that message for a while. I reboot again. Its booting its booting... then all of a sudden the boot menu comes up and safe mode is selected. Ut oh im thinking now... this doesnt look good. So i hit up and choose 'normal'. This time i watch it continue.. its booting its booting... Its gotten up to the screen that says 'Windows98' with the bar on the bottom that is animated. Then, much to my dismay, 'it is now safe to turn off your computer.'

Now ive tried rebooting many many times and i still get that message when i try to boot normally, but it boots fine in safe mode. This leads me to believe that a driver is messed up (well.. duh).

I asked my mom if she was on my computer today, because it was fine when i left it last night, but she said no, and also mentioned that there had been a quick power outage this morning.

That is NOT good. I am hoping that none of my hardware got fried because of this. I really dont want to buy anything new (well... a new geforce 4 wouldnt hurt ;) ) but i know its not the gfx card that is the problem.. if it was, then the screen would be blank.

Annnnnyway, heres the point of the post: How can i isolate the hardware/drivers one by one to determine what piece of hardware/driver is giving me the problem?

ive already tried reinstalling windows and ive followed all the steps here with no avail. Reformating/Buying new hardware is my last resort.

Specs:
Windows 98
1200mHz Athlon
256MB RAM
GeForce 2 MX

if you need more information, let me know

-Steve

Apathy

Ok, at this point i just want to back up my stuff and reformat, but since there are no network or cdrom drives, this would be kinda difficult. is there anyway i can install cdrom drives while im in safe mode?

davidelnormal

You need a WIN98 start up disc which has the cd rom drivers on it. Go in to the BIOS and make sure that the A drive is the selected drive then shut down, put the start up disc in A drive and start the computer with cd rom support.. You will have cdrom and you can then format and reload Windows providing you know how to do it. If not, take it to a shop it will be quicker and cheaper in the long run. Good luck.....Dave

jgvernonco

You can see if this helps:

http://hardwarehell.com/articles/fdisk.htm