ME won't start properly

[kelly]

Have an ME machine in here that won't boot properly. Best I can do is start in Safe Mode. When I do, I'm presented with a white screen with Safe mode written in the corners and there's an arrow cursor in the middle of the white screen. Note: no icons or menus, nada, nothing else.

Moving the mouse doesn't move the arrow. Toggling Caps Lock and Num Lock doesn't toggle the associated lamps. Cntl-Alt-Del did bring up the Task Mgr and was able to use Alt-S to Shut Down.

Starting in normal mode is pretty much the same only the screen is blue instead of white and it doesn't display Safe Mode in the corners. When I plug in a USB mouse, it recognizes that a USB device was plugged in, loads the drivers, and I have mouse control. Same with a USB Keyboard. I've never seen this.

Is there a hidden 'repair' folder in ME like the one in XP? Any one know before I pull the drive and slave to another machine.

[kelly]

I used SCANREG /RESTORE to restore registry to previous day - worked.

98/ME have a feature similar to (maybe the same as) Windows XP System Restore. However, it only remembers the last 5 startup times. You have a choice of which on to use.

[Guest117]

Scanreg/restore saved me so many times.
There is a batch file called cabrest that will show one how to save 15 days instead of the normal 5.
That also is a lifesaver when a problem is not noticed for more than 5 days.
Want more info? Call me.:)

[mylanta]

Tony,
Be careful. The times I have seen that were a bad hard drive first then a bad mobo. Look at capacitors for bulging or leaking now. System would run fine until same damn thing a day or so later where it would only boot to safe mode and I wasted so much time finally replacing hard drive in unbillable hours and then finally entire system I tw as a 1999 gateway I 'll never forget. I thought the issue was software and it was not even though some cures worked temporarily.

[kelly]

Interesting that you mention the hard drive. I think it might be on its way out. It's old and may have been the cause of the problem in the first place. I'm making an image of it now just in case.

Know any hard drive test utilities?

[mylanta]

Tony,
I have never had any faith in hdd test utilities as they mostly say the drive is OK.
You could try Disk health here:
http://pcpitstop.com/

[Seth]

Tony,
Be careful. The times I have seen that were a bad hard drive first.

Good point Rich.

I would run a scandisk with a surface scan from a command prompt.