Pvt. Ryan Posted December 3, 2001 Share Posted December 3, 2001 One of the computers in my office hangs on the Windows95 startup screen. Dell said to reinstall Windows. Anyone have any less drastic advice? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted December 3, 2001 Share Posted December 3, 2001 Gotta love Dell. Instead of getting competent people, they write a manual which generally starts with 'Weird problem--Reinstall from CD image.' What you can do: 1) Disconnect any extraneous devices, especially ones that can catch a power spike like modems or NICs. 2) Try to start. If it works, you know it was a fried piece of hardware hanging when windows starts. 3) If that fails, try starting in safe mode by hitting F8 when it is booting. Then do START-RUN and type in SFC, which will check your system files. If any are found to be corrupt, you might need a windows CD. A better description of the problem will lead to a more accurate solution. WWB 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted December 3, 2001 Author Share Posted December 3, 2001 Thanks, I will try that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted December 3, 2001 Author Share Posted December 3, 2001 The modem was bad. Our building did something with the power this weekend. Everything is on surge surpressors, but I guess the modem fried anyway. I don't need the modem since we have DSL now, but I have to get something to fill the opening. Our voice mail system also crashed. I love Mondays. Thanks for the advice and helping me save money and a ton of work! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted December 4, 2001 Share Posted December 4, 2001 Glad to hear. Learned that trick after spending 1.5 hours doing everything I could to get our EVPs home computer to boot. Finally unplugged the modem to take it in, realized I needed to look at one more setting, and lo and behold it booted. After that I have always eliminated that variable on non-booting machines. And after dealing with dell tech support, there is little wonder why good white-box buys from a local dealer with personal service make much more sense. WWB 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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