By way of the Cyber Safety Forum

[Greyhorne]

My uncles PC (win98 2nd ed.) is failing to reboot.
It reaches the desktop, and loads the taskbar icons, before explorer performs an illegal function, and locks up, just short of his desktop icons opening.

Booting into safe-mode, I assumed something "ware-ish" was opening on startup and creating conflicts, So I checked out the Sys Config Utility and found a new "tenant" had moved into his startup list...

The system had an infection, that has since been cleansed through the help of the Cyber Safety Forum. It still however, is failing to completely boot into Windows, sending up the illegal function error, prior to the icons appearing, and as a result, was referred here for possibly more specialized assistance.

Not sure if anything in Win98 has become corrupted, but any guidance would be much appreciated.

[AnnMarie]

Hi Greyhorne, I checked your logs in the Cyber Safety Forum. They all look as though the are run in Safe Mode?

If you dont mind, can you please run Hijack This in normal mode and also go here and download Silent Runners.vbs to your Desktop and run it. It generates a log too. Please post the information back in this thread. If your AV queries the script, allow it to run. It's not malicious.

[jmtjet]

Try repeatedly hitting the F8 key during boot. When you get to the menu with 5 selections(you've see it if you have been in safe mode)choose "command prompt only". At the C:/ prompt type "scanreg /fix" (without the quotes) Windows should start a registry repair. After the repair, Windows should boot. If you can get into Windows follow AnnMarie's advice for posting a new Hijack This log.

Hope this helps.

[AnnMarie]

Awww, thanks jmtjet. I dunno what I was thinking of.

[Greyhorne]

Got it!

Thanks Ann Marie for that,
and jmtjet, for filling in the sequence!

I'll try to get up there tonight, to see if this works!

-Grey

[Greyhorne]

Well, i tried jmtjet's suggestion, and repaired the registry,

but unfortunately, still recieved the error.

Whats my next option?

Reformatting, and Re-installing Windows?

[renegade600]

give more info about the error itself. When did it start? Was it after some upgrade or install of any hardware or software? Any thing different the last time when everything worked? Any other error messages at all?

[Idnew]

Try these boot up in safe mode. Go to start/programs/accessories/system tools/scan disk--put a check in thorough and a check in fix automatically and run that(it will probably take a long long time hours even but let it finish).

Also in safe mode go to start/run and type in msconfig/startup and take the checks out of everything but system tray then reboot and see if it loads normally.

[AnnMarie]

Hi Greyhorne, I checked your logs again with this morning but made sure I was wearing my specs this time.

Try disabling the below startup using msconfig and and see if you can boot into Windows now.

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Netscape] C:\Program Files\Common Files\ISPCOMP\InstallService.exe

If you can, please send me InstallService.exe, zipped and I will check it out. My addy is anniefriday@xtra.co.nz. Head your email, requested file please and include a link to this thread.

[Greyhorne]

Ok, I'll try these things out tonight, and post back.

Originally Posted by renegade600

give more info about the error itself. When did it start? Was it after some upgrade or install of any hardware or software? Any thing different the last time when everything worked? Any other error messages at all?

It had only been a week, since we managed to finally get my uncle's system back online, after leaving Netzero over a month prior. There had been a long drawn out problem, with signing onto a new Netscape dialup account.
A friend of mine, diagnosed the issue to the DNS server he had been assigned, and reconfigured or rerouted it to another server, to which it connected up fine.
A few days later (as I now asked my uncle exactly what occurred), he said he had just ran Adaware, having a newfound appreciation for his connection, and it came up with some 68 bugs, which he then selected, and fixed.

When he closed Adaware, he said it returned to a desktop with no icons.
Having forgot how to Cntrl-Alt-Del out, he powered the system down.
Upon Start up, I believe he bypassed or exited the prompt to run scan disc, and consequently returned to the desktop, and the recurring Illegal function error.

[Idnew]

Do these as I suggested already then and it should boot normally.

Boot up in safe mode. Go to start/programs/accessories/system tools/scan disk--put a check in thorough and a check in fix automatically and run that(it will probably take a long long time hours even but let it finish).

Also in safe mode go to start/run and type in msconfig/startup and take the checks out of everything but system tray then reboot and see if it loads normally.

[Greyhorne]

Well, I tried shutting the items down with the config utility, and then shut everything down but the sys tray, and both still received the error.
Then ran the thorough scan/reg fix, and hours later booted up, and still found the same thing.
Any thoughts, suggestions, last rites?

[Greyhorne]

Btw, The system does have alotta miles on it.
It used to be mine, and thinking back now, its had a few hiccups leading up to this, or rather has occassionally recieved errors from some bad clusters on the HD.

It may very well be in need of a new one.

[AnnMarie]

Hi Greyhorne, have the numbers of bad clusters increased recently? If so, the problem could be the drive but if it runs ok in Safe Mode, I would be more inclined to think it is a Windows problem. You could try reinstalling Win98 and see if that helps.

[Greyhorne]

Ok Ann Marie.

Well, out of all my years with PC's, I've only had to reinstall Windows once.

Infact it was on this same system, last year for what I recall was a similiar problem.
So I suppose overall I've been relatively fortunate for the most part.

Though I expect the machine I've got now, is overdue for reformatting.

Thanks to all, for taken a shot at it.