Win98 hangs on Windows Screen

[phill44]

When booting a Win98 PC it hangs on the Windows 98 screen while booting. I cannot even get into Safe Mode. This happened a few years ago and I had to replace an inexpensive part (maybe a fan) but cannot remember which one. It was a safety feature of Win98 that would prevent a PC from booting if the part failed.

I also have Win2000 on the PC and can boot that way. Anybody know which part I may need to replace? I searched countless forums and cannot find my answer.

[The Dude]

That happend on my computer a few years ago and i have NO IDEA what caused it,but i booted into safe mode and edited my AUTOEXEC.BAT file and removed this line from it

"IF ERROR LEVEL 1 THEN PAUSE"

I think it had something to do with the AV im not sure.....

Welcome to Daniweb,good luck!

[phill44]

thanks Dude! You are a genius. There was a pause line after a virus scan line in the autoexec.bat file. I think the virus scan software got corrupted and scan.exe could not be found, so the PC would just stay in pause mode.

[The Dude]

Yes i assumed it was something like that :)

Glad things are working!!

98 rocks :)

[lhhester]

Hey Dude,
I'm having the same problem with the hanging windows screen. How do I get to the Autoexe.Bat file to edit it? thanks

[caperjack]

Hey Dude, I'm having the same problem with the hanging windows screen. How do I get to the Autoexe.Bat file to edit it? thanks

like it said in previous post reboot into safe mode ,do this by hitting the f8 key many times when you start the computer .do a search for the file and open it and check and see if the pause line is there ,remember you could make it worse if you remove wrong lines.

[lhhester]

Thanks Caperjack,
When I boot to safe mode it takes me to a command prompt and I can't do a search from there or I don't know how to anyway. Also the F8 key only causes a beep so I've been using the CTrl key to get to the menu. Does anyone else know the steps to take to help me get this thing to boot to the OS?

[The Dude]

This is exactly how i did it

1) Booted up
2) Press F8 until the menu came on
3) Select "Step-by-step confirmation"
4) SELECT YES TO EVERYTHING EXCEPT "AUTOEXEC.BAT"
5) Windows will boot and then just goto your root directory and find "Autoexec.bat" and edit that line out :)

Good luck!

Welcome to Daniweb :)