98SE freezes on boot

[builderpaul]

Hi,
Trying to rehab an old P2 machine. It will boot though the 98 splash screen than to the desktop wall paper. Here it hangs with just the wallpaper and the hour glass (which I can move with the mouse). No icons or task bar or time. Nothing but the wall paper.
It will boot into safe mode and everything works from there.
From Safe mode I have checked the startup files (msconfig), I have scanned and defraged, checked all the device manager stuff. Still can't get it to do a normal boot.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Paul

[Flame]

Have you made any changes to your system recently?

Flame

[GX1_Man]

Format and reinstall Windows. If it is a used machine with an unknown heritage, you are better off avoiding the headaches. Heck, you could have done that by now!  

[builderpaul]

Wow 2 replies in less than an hour. Thanks.

Any way, no there has been no changes made in at least 2 years. This machine was used to run autocad back when I was doing that for a living. Got a new machine and this old 98SE was used a few times for e-mail but started to do this hang thing. I, at first, thought maybe a virus. It uses the paid version of AVG with zone alarm on a 3 computer network connected to broadband. All scans come up negative.

I would have just reformatted and reinstalled but I no longer have the 98SE CDs, or the autocad CD. I again want to use the autocad, I can use it from safe mode, but it is just a pain to boot to safe mode all the time.

Thanks again for your replies.
Paul

[soybean]

Go to ebay and get a legitimate copy of Win 98SE.  Then, format the hard drive and install Win 98SE.

[Fed]

Using safe mode untick the startup items & re-boot to normal mode.
If it works, re-tick them one at a time to find the culprit.