Win98 Hangs at Startup

[bryanmac]

I'm having a bit of a problem booting Win98. When I get to the Win98 startup splash screen my computer hangs. I attempted to run scandisk and got two seperate errors. One stating an invalid (too long) filename and one stating that there is a bad cluster on my hd. After the bad cluster message, scandisk hangs as well. I think it might be have something to do with Norton's Virus Scan attempting to run at startup, but I cannot figure out how to shut it down from DOS. I've also tried editing msdos.sys to deactivate the splash screen (Logo=0), but that didn't seem to work either. Does anybody know what the problem could be or how to fix a bad cluster? Any suggestions/comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bryan

[YODA74]

start here with trouble shooting hangs. http://www.techadvice.com/w98/S/startup.htm

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Treading,Troden,Trails
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[ski]

Press and hold the Ctrl key at startup, select 'Step by Step Confirmation' from the menu, press Enter, when prompted to process the autoexec.bat and config.sys files press Esc. Does it start?

If not, restart and hold Ctrl, select 'Safe Mode'. Does it start?

If not, restart and hold Ctrl, select 'Safe Mode Command Prompt Only'. Start?

If not, insert the Windows boot floppy, restart. See a C:\> prompt, or 'Invalid Drive' message?

Normally, Scandisk will take care of a bad cluster. However, if it's large or there are a lot of them, then the HD is probably bad.

[bryanmac]

I tried using the step-by-step method without loading the config.sys and autoexec.bat, but I keep getting a message stating that "one or more sectors on your hd have developed bad clusters". I'm then prompted to run scandisk which gets hung up. Is there any way to salvage the hd? Thanks for your help.

[mjc]

Sounds like the files needed for the OS to run are in the bad clusters ...the drive may have seen its last boot. Try hitting <f8> while booting to get the boot menu, then choose option 6 (in 98se...Safe Mode command prompt), then at the the c:\ prompt type in cd\windows, thenat the c:\windows> type in scandisk_/surface_/autofix )spaces instead of the underscores)...if it hangs or won't run then in all likelyhood the drive is not going to be salvageable...you may be able to get enough time out of it to backup data if you remove it and freeze it and after you take it out and reinstall it you quicly back it up (only the essentials)

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[ranchdog]

Sometimes a low-level format will heal some bad clusters as it writes 0's on the entire HD. Then comes an O/S fresh install.

You'll need to go to the website for your HD Mfg for thier low-level formatting program.

But.... Murphy's Law comes by for a visit. Bad sectors lead to more bad sectors and the HD goes to the Big PC in the Sky. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

Luck.

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......Indecision may or may not be my problem......
...... Kickin' A Rock....

[bryanmac]

Is a low-level format different from what the DOS format tool found on the startup disk does?

[mjc]

Yes, it is a utility that is provided by the manufacturer of the drive and completely erases the drive, writing 1, 0 or a random character to the entire surface, marks bad sectors and sometimes removes them by updating a special table that contains the info about the drive(arera of the drive not accessible to the OS), and possibly replaces them (remaps it to a sector in another area of the drive just for this purpose).

Also how old is the drive?...many drives have a three year warranty.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[bryanmac]

I'm not really sure on the age of the drive, it's my friend's laptop. I got a hold of Gateway's hd utility, GWSCAN, but not even that worked. I guess he's now got a nice new paperweight. Thanks for all your help.

Bryan

[iisbob]

The zero utility tool offerd by harddrive manufactueres is not a low-level format! It simply writes 1's and 0's to the drive ( no different than any other data write )-modern drives are setup at the factory and if you attempted a low-level format you would physically destroy the drives geometry ( low-level formatting is only for drives of around 500 mb's ).



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iisbob
""I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know."
Mark Twain

[ranchdog]

Thank You Sir. Apologize for my dereliction in terminology. As in zero utility.

Just used to Maxtor refering to this process as low-level.

You may now rap my fingers with a stick. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

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......Indecision may or may not be my problem......
...... Kickin' A Rock....

[This message has been edited by ranchdog (edited 12-03-2001).]

[ranchdog]

http://freepctech.com/pc/001/007.shtml

Reference to iisbob's accurate post.
Low-level and zero-utility.

Luck.

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......Indecision may or may not be my problem......
...... Kickin' A Rock....