What is the procedure for starting windows 98 with a emergency boot disc. Windows will not start in either regular or safe mode. Please help.

Well, if you have a win 98 boot disk, put it in the floppy and restart your computer, and let it do it's thing, choose cdrom support when it asks. Doing this will not bring up Windows, you will be at a C:> prompt. If you want to try install windows 98 over the top of your existing installation, type D:\ setup, or E:\setup (of course your windows 98 cd will need to be in your cdrom drive)and just follow the prompts and follow along with the setup until it's done.

When Your computer with Windows98 Operating System does not Boot to Windows desktop either in normal mode or to the safe mode which is a Troubleshoot Mode, the first question to ask must be what is its cause? Is it due to Software or hardware malfunction? Answer to that question is based on: 1What *events preceded the current problem? 2.What was really **observed (seen/heard)when the computer was powered on * Any hardware or software Changes [ Install/Uninstall of Devices/Programs] Virus/Worms/spyware infection or Removal, or Power surges/Lightning ** Normal or abnormal BIOS Beeps, What was seen on Boot Screen . Troubleshoots without any idea about the cause will be a hit or miss!

If it fails to boot from the floppy, enter the bios Setup routine and make sure that the floppy is first in the bootup sequence.

You can't start a normal session of 98 from a bootdisk. The bootdisk leaves you at a dos prompt and assumes you have some knowledge of dos commands. As maadhurimn says, we need more info on what happened--error messages, etc.

Hey, what kind of name is that, "hoghead"?

I agree with the info in response number 2. When you boot a computer from a bootable system floppy, it does not launch Windows for you, instead you are left at the Dos prompt. Since dos is running from a floppy, the prompt will look like this when the computer has finished booting from the floppy. A:\ At the above prompt type C:\ Then the prompt would look like this C:\ Next type the command dir command to see if any thing is left on the drive. The command should look like this dir /p You can hit the enter key to move onto the next screen displaying the files and directories found on your sister in-law's hard drive. Do you see the directory named "Windows" how about autoexec.bat,config.sys, and msdos.sys? If these files along with the Windows directory are still in tact, there is a good chance you can make it through this without having to reinstall. (Reinstalling is hardly ever the right thing to do). Find out the date on which the computer last worked properly. At the dos prompt type cd Windows, and then cd command. The prompt should now look like this. C:\Windows\Command> Next type "Scanreg/restore" at the prompt.(Without the quote marks). The Scanreg program will display a list of backup copies of the registry. Select a date from the list, a date prior to the computer no working, and restore that copy of the registry. When you have completed this Scanreg will tell you that you must restart the computer, go a head and restart without the bootable floppy disk in drive. If Windows will still not start, reboot with the bootable floppy in drive. You will once again find yourself looking at A:\ (As you may recall, on your earlier post I recommended copying fdisk and sys.com to the bootable floppy. At the Dos prompt type "fdisk /mbr" . If there is a problem with the master boot record, this should solve that issue. Since your still at the Dos prompt at this point you may as well use sys.com. Sys.com will overwrite/replace files such as command.com, msdos.sys, and a few others that I don't remember. At your A dos prompt type "sys.com A:\ C:\" As far as I know, none of the above steps can make your troubles any worse, and if they do not solve the problem, they will not add too it. Of course if the problem turns out to be some sort of hardware related issue all of the above will have not impact on the system. However, if it is a software issue, nine times out of ten this solves the problem.