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[Ambrosia]

Hi SoftStag,
I was copying files and Win98se got hung up. I had to shut down the computer (turn off) and reboot. Windows hung up on the windows logo screen. In safe mode the drives and device manager look normal (i.e., as they usually do).

I booted with the startup disk floppy with cdrom support and reinstalled windows from the cd. At the point in the installation where it restarts windows, after copying files, it got hung up on the logo screen but said 'starting windows for the first time'. I went into safe mode again and the date on the windows files (folders on which the date changes on reinstall) hasn't changed so I think the install was aborted.

I booted with the startup disk and ran a:\sys c: (hope that wasn't the wrong thing to do), rebooted, windows hung up, safe mode same, reinstalled windows, windows hung up.

The thing is, I'm not getting any messages to give me a clue as to what to look for. I've reinstalled windows many times before but have never had it hang up like this.

Can you give me any suggestions as to what to do next? I sure would appreciate any help.

Thanks,
Ambrosia

[SoftStag]

If you can get in to Safe Mode, run a full scandisk to make sure your hard drive is in good shape.

Do you have any data on your hard drive that you wish to keep?
_________________
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes. The reasons for updates are to present more new features."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine

[Ambrosia]

Thanks for your reply!

I ran a full scandisk - 0 errors on all drives.
I forgot to tell you that I had also restored to a previous good startup configuration. I did it only once because there were only 3 available and I didn't want to use them all up when I didn't know what was wrong.

Yes - I'm trying to save my data. This is the drive I was trying to copy using the flash drive. I was having trouble with the flash drive drivers on Win98se and you helped me get that working.

Thanks for your help!
Ambrosia

[SoftStag]

I think the best course of action is to backup all your data, format the drive and install a clean copy of Windows.
_________________
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes. The reasons for updates are to present more new features."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine