re: Refuses to start either normally or in safe mode
Tuesday, July 13, 2004 at 10:52 am
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Jack Gulley
(5917 messages posted)
Try running a standalone memory test on your system. A bad memory module can cause
this type of problem, and all the DOS based things you have ran would not be trying
to access the bad memory area. You could try booting into the BIOS CMOS Setup and
see if you have the option to run the Power On Self Test for memory. This is normally
disabled with the option "Enable Quick Power on Test" being Enabled. Disable it so
it can check the system memory on power up as a quick check.
See:  page for links
to making good standalone memory test diskettes or a bootable CD.
If a standalone memory test runs for several hours without finding a problem,
then try selecting the BOOTLOG option. When it reboots, use a boot diskette and from
it run EDIT C:\BOOTLOG.TXT and view the boot log generated. (You may have
to first delete the old one, it is a hidden file, so you can see what is going on
and if it is generating a new BootLog.TXT file.) How far it is getting into the boot
process might give you a clue as to what is going on or what might be corrupted.
There may also be a BOOTLOG.PRV file that you could compare with to see what happened
on a previous boot.
Also use EDIT to look at the hidden MSDOS.SYS control file and see if that short
text file is corrupted.
The type of problem you are having can be caused by bad hardware (network adapter,
Graphic Accelerator, USB adapter - things that are not accessable from DOS) or corrupted
program files or control files. Even virus and trojans that do not show up with manual
DOS based scans.
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