(Sorry for the length.)
I had an odd boot last night on a friends computer.
We had an ATI video driver install fail on an HP
Pavilion 8380. (PII-400, I think)
(We got the exact file for this model from HP since it
is an ATI MB chip video.)
We hoped to go from 5.0~ to 5.3 or something...
(So it was an actual upgrade...) The file at the ATI
site was specifically NOT recommended by HP.)
While booting, the W98 start-up screen graphic,
(real mode video), never transitioned to protected
mode, or the desktop. It stopped half way.
After hitting ESC twice, slowly, and hearing Win98 load
complete with system sounds and everything, all I was
looking at was a "C" prompt.
I could tell Win98 was running because I could navigate
with the key board and get the proper system event sounds.
After "playing" this way slightly, (blind), I did a keyboard
shut down with the Windows key (and a few others).
The system exited "just like" the GUI was there, complete
with the proper event sounds... (Normal ATX type power
down and no scandisk on re-boot...)
Selecting the old drives in safe mode caused more of the
same.
I forced safe mode and deleted the monitors and
graphic adapter cards and eventually all was well.
(It found and installed the exact driver I had tried to put
back - the original one from before this all started.
If I had not seen it, I would never have believed all this.
While in safe mode, I noticed the computer thinks it had
11 CD-Rom drives. (Some are dups., but there are about
five different brand names listed.)
All it has _ever_ had was ONE DVD drive.
(No one had really touched this system since it came out
of the box...)
Both Control Panel and "MS Plus" have trouble changing
the DeskTop schemes.
So the question becomes, (finally the question you say,
if you got this far...),
Is the registry "going south"?
If a video driver will not install, what do you do to "clean up"
the system "just enough" to get it to?
Not an easy question I know, but still hoping for an easy
answer...
PS: All temp directories and the ATI directory are empty.
It is running on ATI/MS drivers.
Rick Glazier
The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
support at our newest website:
http://freepctech.com
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