Hi, you're probably going to get loads of suggestions for this:
My first thought was that you should back up all your data and reformat.
That's probably what I would do after a few years anyway, but that's the
easy option.
Have you run scandisk lately? (and made sure you've ticked the box to fix
all errors?) Have you defragged lately? If the answer is no to those
questions, I would do both before the problem gets any worse.
Also, in the past, when I've had a problem starting windows, I've just
booted using my start up disk, chose option 2 (start computer without cdrom,
because there was no need for the cd at that time), and run scandisk from
there. Make sure you type: C:\ , or you will scan the floppy drive! (just
type in scandisk)
I seem to remember a suggestion some time back stating that you should type:
scandisk /surface /Autofix /nosave
Personally, I think this may be the better option if you want to try and
save all of your data, as you may have more corrupted files within windows.
This will mark out any bad sectors (if any) that you may have as well.
I have wondered in the past in similar circumstances to yours whether
scanning from within windows would be a good idea, as I sometimes wonder if
the scanning program itself may have become corrupted. (I'm sure it's
possible).
These suggestions may not work, but they  might well fix the problem
completely.
Good luck
Michele Sayer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary W South" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 8:47 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Reinstalled Windows 98 will not start


> I have a Packard Bell  300 MHz Pentium II with 96 MB RAM. I was running
> Windows 98 which was an upgrade from Windows 95. It was upgraded at least
3 years
> ago. I ran the system file checker because it was havivg a couple minor
> problems(short cuts not opening programs without rebooting, and I couldn't
get the
> modem to connect). File checker replaced a couple corrupt files and
replaced
> many others with previous versions from my Windows 98 disk. After that
Windows
> would not boot. I tried reinstalling Windows 98 several times but it
causes
> fatal exceptions when it gets to the part of setting up hardware.
Sometimes the
> errors were as it was setting up the hardware and other times it  was when
the
> computer needed  to restart after setting up the hardware. The following
is one
> example of what happened.
>
> When it said it was setting up hardware and plug and play the BLUE SCREEN
> came up. It said Windows on top
>
> A fatal exception OE has occured at 015F:BFF9DBA7  The current application
> will be terminated. press any key  after pressing a key it said
>
> MSGSRV32 caused a general protection fault in module KRNL386.EXE at
> 0001:000025D6
>
>
> After these errors sometimes ctrl+alt+del sometimes restarts but usually I
> have to turn it off. If it restarts it comes back to the same or similar
> problem. I sometimes get other error messages. I can get it started in
safe mode but
> it has no sound, and no CD-ROM.
>
> Also I have 3 32 MB RAM chips. I pulled them out and tried one at a time
to
> see if maybe one of them was bad. It does the same thing with each one or
all
> in.
>
> Does anyone have any idea of what is causing these problems and is there a
> way to fix it without losing my 5 years of information I have collected?
>
> TIA
> Gary South
>
>          PCBUILD maintains hundreds of useful files for download
>                      visit our download web page at:
>                   http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml

                         PCBUILD's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>