after entering log-on password, hits black screen 1

[jared5494]

I'm going into my friends problem blindly, so before i go, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Heres the problem: after he enters his logon password to windows 98, it immediately hits a black screen. no icons, nothing. He says it just all of a sudden did this and he doesnt remember any power failures or spikes. from this black screen, he can do nothing but restart, which will give him the black screen once more.

what should i look for/troubleshoot when i arrive? I'm doubting hes having the 512mb + ram problem and he doesn't know if he has virus protection.

Sorry, his email was not detailed at all.

I appreciate any help!

thanks,
Jared

 

[ski]

See if it starts in Safe mode by holding down the Ctrl key at startup, select Safe Mode, and press Enter.
If it starts in Safe Mode and the problem happened within the last 5 days, then restart the computer, press and hold the Ctrl key, select 'Command Prompt Only', press Enter, type scanreg/restore, press Enter, use the arrow keys to select a Registry that predates the problem, and press Enter.
If the system still does not start normally, then do a clean boot to troubleshoot the problem:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q192926

If it does not start in Safe Mode, then restart the computer, press the Del key(or whatever key is specified on the 1st screen at startup) to enter CMOS Setup, use the arrow keys to highlight 'Default' settings on the main menu, press Enter, press Y at the warning(if it appears), highlight 'Save And Exit', press Enter, type Y at the warning, insert the Windows boot floppy disk, press Enter,
select 'Start Windows Without CD-ROM Support', press Enter, at the A:\> prompt type dir c: and press Enter:
(1)If you do not see the contents of the hard drive, then it has a problem(defective drive, loose or defective cable, or disabled or bad IDE1 controller).
(2)If you see the hard drive's contents, then do the following:
-If the hard drive is using 3rd party overlay or compression software, make sure it's properly configured.
-Use an antivirus floppy to check the hard drive for a virus(see your antivirus program's instructions).
-Type scandisk c: at the A:\> prompt, and press Enter to fix any errors.
-If no good, then type C: at the A:\> prompt, press Enter, type fdisk /mbr at the C:\> prompt and press Enter to replace the master boot record.
-If still no good, then type sys c: at the A:\> prompt, and press Enter to replace the system files.
-If no luck, then reseat the memory. If that does not help, then run Memtest-86 to test the memory. (Note: It's run in DOS mode) If a lot of errors show up in the test, then the memory may be bad.