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PC won't boot except Safe Mode

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by worley84

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I have a Quantex Celeron 500 running Win98SE that will not boot except to safe mode. A normal boot will just freeze after a few seconds. The interesting thing is that I have tried several hard drives that have Win95, and they exhibit the same behavior, even the bootlog.txt looks the same. I have removed the network card and modem and put in a different video card without help. Reloading 98 didn't work either.

13 replies

by csmith

I assume there are no conflicts in the device manager, and the problem just "appeared" on day with no changes to the PC.
The first thing to check for is a Virus.
(Try to boot on an Antivirus floppy.)
(Remember to set the boot order in the BIOS toA,C )
Then do a F8, and select step by step, to try to find the problem. (When the PC freezes on one step you know that that step is where to look.)
A note here: When you swap in video cards as a test, use an old ISA VGA card. This tests if the PCI bus has a problem, as well as testing the video.
The next thing to do is to go carefully through the BIOS settings.
If that doesn't work check the internal USB cable. If it is shorted it will stop a boot.
This is also true of the floppy cable. Check it next. (I assume you have already swapped the IDE cable.)
When you use F8 be sure to ask it to create a new bootlog.txt.
If you don't get to F8, pull the HD eliminate the HD settings in the BIOS, and try to boot on a floppy.
This problem isalmost certainly a hardware or virus problem.
Regards, Chris

by csmith

:
The no boot problem, that you are experiencing, is due to a disturbed cable.
The problem is that many of the cables provided in PCs are very cheaply made.
This means that it is very easy to cause a problem when you are working inside a PC.
Theconnectors are usually the problem.
When you changed the IDE Cable and the BIOS would not recognize the HD, the new cable was bad. I have seen this quite a few times.
Halting on the mouse.vxd is a problem which will freeze the boot.
Not loading the True Type fonts will not freeze the boot. Not loading just prevents their use in documents.
When this happens, I usually remove all of the Cards (Except Video)and Hard Drive. Then try a Floppy boot.
If you don't want to do this, I would at least change the mouse and the IDE cable.
The mouse was probably the original problem.
Regards, Chris

by worley84

It seems that it was the motherboard itself that was cosuing problems. They kept getting worse and worse. I have replaced the motherboard, processor and RAM. System now works fine. Thanks for your help.

by diskaus

try running scandisk from dos , if you cant boot from floppy try holding shift and F5 down while the system bots up , once at the
X:. prompt type scandisk X, ( "X"denotes your current drive that you have windows installed on )
hope that helps :-))

by worley84

I have checked for viruses with Norton AV: clean. I have stepped through boot, and it stops at mouse.vxd, but bootlog.txt show trutype fonts as not loading (failure code is 0016). There are no ISA slots, video and audio are integrated. I have tried to changing the IDE cable, but the PC will now not boot. I get CMOS error, but BIOS can no longer detect any HD. Also, the PC turns now on as soon as power is applied, but it won't turn off unless the power cord is removed.

by meddjay

When you said CMOS error, I got to wondering if maybe you didn't need to replace the CMOS battery, though it will ususally say if it is a cmos battery error. If you noticed that the time isn't keeping correctly on this computer either before this happened or even now, then I would say that is what the problem is, either way if you have things backed up and you can't figure it out, then that is always an option. Hope this helps! :)

by shuja52

First of all check your CMOS battery. Then check IDE cables connections whether it is connected rightly. If still problem presits, check the RAM (by changing it). Then try adding a IDE card.

by oldchewie

If you can get the PC to boot again (I would put back how it was when it worked), boot Safe Mode and remove the Plug & Play BIOS under System Devices in Device Manager. When you reboot, this will cause the PC to re-detect ALL of the hardware. The problem you are experiencing sounds like a driver issue (the hint is that it will boot Safe Mode). Make sure that you have your driver CDs/diskettes and Win98 CD handy before you do this.

Good Luck!

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