Help! My System is Not Responding

[Beezer]

A couple nights ago, I was working on my kid's science project using MS Office/Word. I was adding some clipart to his report, and suddenly the system froze. After a hard reset, I get the Win'98 screen and the system just hangs there. That's the way it's been since.
Nothing appears wrong with hardware (I know this is the hardware forum, but there's no General Software forum..). I can boot from the floppy and can access my CDROM and my hard drive and all the files. I just can't get Windows OS to work.
I tried reloading Win'98. Setup runs through the disk scan and stuff, then when it gets to a message "Scanning Registry" it hangs again.
Any suggestions??? I would very much like to avoid reformating my 13GB hard drive as it is nearly half full. My system is a PIII 450 (not O/C) with 128 RAM and G400 (32MB vanilla). I've been running this system for more than 6 months with no previous problems.

[Rags]

Boot into safe mode, goto start/run/ type vcmui and see if there are any files listed. If so, click restore. If that turns up nothing, try going to start/programs/accessories/system tools/system information/ click on the tools tab and click on system file checker.

Rags

[Beezer]

Thanks for the advice Rags. I hit F8 tried booting into Safe Mode (#3), but it still froze. I was able to enter Step by Step (#4). On the very first item -- Load Registry -- it froze if I answered Y. So the next time I answered no, and answered Y to everything else -- it still froze before loading Windows. I also tried Command Prompt (#5) with the system hanging. Command Prompt in Safe Mode (#6) worked ok, but I don't know the difference between the two.
Any other suggestions???
While in command prompt (in safe mode) I tried the "scanreg /restore" option to restore an older version of the registry. I thought it was going to work, but after a brief hard drive activity, the system froze on me again (is this maybe because I was in safe mode?).
If my only choice is to reload Windows, how do I do that if the setup program insists on scanning the registry first?

[ALBPM]

Hi Beezer, sorry to hear of your problems. Have you tried to simple hardware checks like re-seating you processr, RAM and G400?

Been missing you on the UT sever. Hope you get this fixed soon.

Paul

[Rags]

Yup, I agree with Pauly, check your hardware now, and double check all of your jumper settings and clock speed, ram, and fsb settings. Also make sure your CPU fan is still working, and try clearing your cmos.

Rags

[Alfie]

This has saved my bacon a few times and may be worth a try.However as you've reloaded Windows can't guarantee it.
Hit the f8 key and choose Command prompt only.
At the C:Type Scanreg\fix and see if that works.
If it doesn't try typing Scanreg\restore,with this command a list of previous registrys are displayed,choose one previous to the initial failure and choose Okay or the command offered.
I always get the/or\ confused so if one fails try the other.
Hopefully there's still a previous registry that will get you into windows.
HTH.

[RAB]

Sorry about your problem Beezer. But to answer your earlier question, scanreg /restore only works (if its going to work at all) from the regular command prompt. It will not work from the safe mode prompt. Scanreg is also what I would try first.

But if scanreg and reinserting all your parts doesn't work, I would have to guess its either a faulty CPU or memory chip(s). If you have more than one memory chip, try them one at a time to see if either is defective. I've had three bad memory sticks in the past four years and its probably the most common silicon related problem. If you can borrow a friend's CPU and memory for a short test, that might give you another way to test.

RAB

[ALBPM]

Any luck so far Beezer. Keep us posted...

Paul

[Beezer]

Well, I made a little progress last night -- or made it worse...
I deleted (actually renamed) my System.dat file (I think that's where my registry resides). After that, I was able to access the standard command prompt which in turn allowed me to run "scanreg /restore". I restored an earlier version of the registry and can now boot Windows in safe mode.
However, when attempting a normal Windows startup, it almost loads everything but eventually hangs. I think the corrupted System.dat file that I removed has some important stuff that windows needs....
I think my next step will be to reinstall Windows (I think the setup program will work now). If that doesn't work, it's time to pop open the case and look at my RAM chip and other hardware (as a last resort).

[Beezer]

I managed to avoid having to pop open the case this time. My system is back an running normal again.
I'm not exactly sure what I did to finally fix it but, after reinstalling windows and rebooting to an old emergency disk that I found and doing a partial boot (only loaded some drivers), I finally got Win 98 to boot completely -- it took about 10 minutes to fully load. But once it did, all subsequent boots were normal.
I have now made a new emergency boot disk -- just in case this happens again... also defraged the hard drive. Strange thing though... as soon as I got my system running, this forum crashed for two days.... hope it wasn't anything I did.
Thanks to all for your advice.

[Alfie]

Glad to hear it!
That's always a drag,but I'm glad it's working.
You had nothing to do with MURC crashing,I suspect Ant got a "ILove you" messege and thinking it was for his birthday,opened it...