Win 3.1 won't boot

I have a workstation that runs win 3.10. (it's for making cassette tape pancakes and the software will only run on 3.1)
The battery went flat (lost the time etc.) and now it won't boot 3.1
Dos loads OK and BIOS can be configured but right about when the splash screen for 3.1 would come up I get a flashing cursor in the top left of the screen. Keyboard is locked, mouse is inoperable.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can fix this without re-installing 3.1?

This box has of scsi cards (2) and specific software that will be a bear to re-install.

Has any hardware changed or software installed prior to the start of this issue?  You never see the splash screen at all?  If you keep tapping F8 before Windows loads, one of the options lets you step through the config.sys & autoexec.bat.  It's probably something in the config.sys; that's where all the DOS drivers reside.  Flashing cursor & locked keyboard indicates a problem with one of them.

If you keep tapping F8 before Windows loads, one of the options lets you step through the config.sys & autoexec.bat.  It's probably something in the config.sys; that's where all the DOS drivers reside.  Flashing cursor & locked keyboard indicates a problem with one of them.

Tapping F8 as windows before windows loads means your typing f8 at the prompt. typing it while windows loads does nothing.

F8 while <DOS> loads (DOS 5 and higher) prompts for each line in Config.sys. Then it asks if you would like to step through autoexec.bat as well- if you say y, it does so. if you say n, it simply runs all the commands in autoexec.bat.

F5 skips both altogether.

however, skipping config.sys will mean that himem.sys will not be loaded, so windows 3.1 won't start in that instance either. however, if the starting of windows 3.1 is normally done "automatically" (with win in autoexec.bat) then you can use f5 to skip that and be able to edit it out of autoexec.bat. at that point, you can reboot and see if everything works <up> to loading windows. (for example, watch for error messages from the various drivers that load).

In fact- post your config.sys, autoexec.bat, and C:\windows\system.ini files here.

OK thanks for the replies.

Everything works fine up to the loading of windows. I took the "win" line out of the autoexec.bat file and up to then it's ok.

So it's my guess that dos is working ok it's the windows part that's the problem. I'll have a look at the system.ini file and post it if I can't figure out any problem. 

Thanks again for your time.

first thing I'd try is to change the video to standard VGA, via "setup"

(change to the windows directory and run "setup.exe" from there (it might be mssetup, I can't remember). and that will allow you to change some of the setup options.

OK thanks for the replies.

Everything works fine up to the loading of windows. I took the "win" line out of the autoexec.bat file and up to then it's ok.

OK. The good thing is you have DOS working. With DOS you should be able to recover the problem. Someone mentioned changing the video to standard VGA and that is a good start. Video drivers can often be a problem with starting up windows and OS2 warp. When you run setup from the windows prompt, you can go through the whole thing without worrying about any major changes to your hard drive. I have a folder where I keep the setup files unexpanded in case they are needed as well. Windows 3.x systems are not as problematic for the casual power user as later operating systems are because the boots are far less complicated and you can with a little bit of experience easily understand what everything is doing during boot time.

Automatic backups of your config.sys and autoexec.bat files have .001, .002, etc. extensions and you can examine these files using the
edit command in DOS. Compare your current config.sys and autoexec.bat with these files.

Do put your config.sys and autoexec.bat files here so we can see...

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