Painfully slow Win 98 boot-up

[AMD-homebuilt]

Friends-
Please brainstorm this one:
My 4 year old sons' computer is now taking SIX MINUTES to go from a C: prompt (no GUI) to Windows 98 desktop.
Last week it took 20-30 seconds. Once into windows
operation seems normal.
There have been no hardware changes, no "MS-Dos compatibility mode" flags, no drivers flagged as goofy....The paging file size is 300MB.
My son may have gotten into and changed settings by random accident?
What should I look for?
Thanks
Mike

[AllGamer]

run MSCONFIG.EXE

and dissable ALL the StartUp items

:t

[rraehal]

Sounds like a good place to start. I don't have any suggestions other than this except maybe there is a driver that is messed up even if it doesn't show in Device Manager.



:confused: :confused: :confused:

[arisaa]

All the above and also check Autoexec.bat and Config.sys for changes. If you need help on this post again.
Don't forget, DOS is still dominant in Win98.
:t

[Rocketmech]

You could also use Bootlog analyser , a free utility , to help isolate the trouble.
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Downright_pages/downrights_a-z.htm

[AMD-homebuilt]

Well-still no luck
All startup items disabled, no bad drivers, boots
to a C: prompt quickly...
I will try that bootlog analyzer....:confused:

[rangeral]

Reload your mobo drivers just in case but this could be just a hard drive going bad go to the manuf site and d/l there diagnostic utility see what it reports, note down if you get an error code to rma the drive back to manuf if still under warranty usually you can check at there website.

[Martingi]

Hi, does your computer have a network card?,
if so maybe your son, ticked the option were it finds your IP adress instead of you customing your one.
Not really sure if this will help.

[AMD-homebuilt]

Its a 4yr old 6.4 gig West Digital drive -I have WD diagnostic and will run to see if hard drive is
dying.
Oh what fun it is to ride......

[stix_kua]

try defragging the drive becuas efiels do get shuffled around...use a non-windows defragmentation utility becasue the built in one doesn't always work right. It has killed my computer several times:r :x

[Rocketmech]

So, what did the bootlog show? Any devices drivers taking a long time to load?

[AMD-homebuilt]

Did not use bootlog analyzer. Got fed up and re-installed Win98. Now we are cool and back to a snappy boot up
What happened? Dont know, may never know,just happy to get the kid's machine back so he can play Commander Keen, etc without frustration from
waiting for a boot up.

Thanks for your interest

Mike


;)

[Tick]

I say you got a lucky pick, re-installing your OS fixed the problem!

I had a machine that took 15 minutes to boot, Found a bad CDRW by disconnecting one device at a time and rebooting each time! Took me all of 5 minutes.

I will stop here before I **** off a bunch of peeps!


Tick

[pel]

try to reinstall drivers for your motherboard or chipsets. check also you harddrive website and look for patches or updates such UDMA 33 for hard drives. May i know what version of windows you got>

[kimike]

I think hes got it all fixed up there pel.