Win 98 won't boot

[ej115]

How do I fix the boot sector on my 98 without reformatting and reinstalling? When the computer boots it prompts me to select safe mode and when I do it hangs with just a cursor--it won't boot normally or any other selection on that menu. I really don't want to reinstall and lose everything on the hard drive.

[Matridom]

The fact that your getting the menu choice indicates that your boot sector is fine (your computer IS booting) your issues that your experiencing is with windows starting up. It's an OS issue and not boot.

To start with, look at your bootlog file and see what services are failing on startup. I would not get your hopes up though, you'll probably need to reinstall windows (a format is not necessairy)

[Cygnus]

If you have another machine available you could try slaveing the drive to that one and run some repair software on the drive while in the good OS or perhaps just scandisk remotely. I have done this plenty of times with great success, as long as the Kernel wasnt messed up.

[Sly]

[quote]Originally posted by ej115:
<strong>How do I fix the boot sector on my 98 without reformatting and reinstalling? When the computer boots it prompts me to select safe mode and when I do it hangs with just a cursor--it won't boot normally or any other selection on that menu. I really don't want to reinstall and lose everything on the hard drive.</strong><hr></blockquote>

You can try this one it might work. Start-up in the command prompt only and type "regedit /fix", if that works you are set , if not try the /restore switch, and restore a known good back-up of the registry.

If you can not boot after that its the old FDISK and Format c trick. good luck

[confus-ed]

[quote]Originally posted by ej115:
<strong>How do I fix the boot sector on my 98 without reformatting and reinstalling? When the computer boots it prompts me to select safe mode and when I do it hangs with just a cursor--it won't boot normally or any other selection on that menu. I really don't want to reinstall and lose everything on the hard drive.</strong><hr></blockquote>

As said you're booted! But most likely if even go to C: prompt(dos) won't go then the disk is awry, so scandisk, boot from floppy or Win cd, choose from Bios.

You can run install again from the cd over the top of your existing windows installation, generally it manages to 'carry forward' already installed apps, but that depends on what's broken..

I think something could still be stopping windows was this a sudden thing...?