This is a follow up on my post dated 12/31/02.

My situation has gooten worse. I no longer can complete the start-up procedure on my computer. Computer now freezes during start-up. I tried using the safe mode, but it also froze in the safe mode. I check the fan and it seems to be working well. I had received some suggestions from Jack G and a couple of others in the original posting(12/31/02), but i could not execute them because the computer freezes before i could even start up anything.

Help me please. This problem has become frustrating at this point Thanks.

Your system will not boot in any mode if you have a corrupt registry.
Try this;
If you have a startup disk then boot with it. At the command prompt - type scanreg /restore. Take out floppy then reboot. If that dont work then try next;
Reboot Windows and press F8 to bring up the startup menu. 2. Select step-by-step start and load only HIMEM.SYS (and DoubleSpace, if needed). 3. run again SCANREG /RESTORE.

J-Wolf I have a start-up disk but it does not work. I am not sure if i am using it wrong also. I tried to use the system restore cd but it froze when trying to use.

Your second option is that easy to do? I am not familiar with computers and how it works

I had a similar problem with freqent freeze ups during starting with my Gateway computer. I tried all the list of fixes that Gateway and others could recommend. One thing I didn't do was reformat my hard drive. After several weeks of playing around with the system, Gateway finally said it sounded like my motherboard was bad. They sent me a replacement motherboard, I was still under warrantee, I installed it and within 15 minutes all my freeze ups were gone. Just a thought.

Al how do i reformat my hard drive? it it safe to do so?

I went back and read the other posts to your problem. Now they where very good suggestions (12/31/02) Now have you tried any of them? At =exactly= what point do you get to when you boot. List step by step from the time you turn on your computer untill it stops. Then somebody will be able to help you. Reformat the hard drive is not a fix to everything. You may have problems with hardware. Also when you format the drive you will lose everything. Unless you know how to do a recover.

m.e wont start
http://computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/30687.html

Thank you all for your responses.

J_Wolf in regards to your question as to where exactly does it freeze, i will say it varies. When i power the computer up some of the times it freezes at 1) the first black screen and the cursor just blinks and it just hangs there; 2) the WINDOWs ME screen, again it just hangs there, 3) sometimes i luckily can get to the screen where i can see the desktop however it never fully loads-It just freezes again.

At the point when i wrote my 12/31/02 mssge i used to be able to complete start-up and then it would freeze, but now, the start-up wont even complete.

Make or have someone make a boot diskette with DocMemory_v2.0 and test it on another machine first. Then try booting your machine with the diskette.

DocMemory v2.0 is the correct version for Windows ME as it is just a version of windows 98/98SE/ME. (Those instruction refer to the system you are downloading the program to that is going to make the diskette, not the system you are going to run it on. DocMemory has its on operating system on it call FreeDOS.)

The objective of the DocMemory boot diskette is to test the hardware and see if it is working at all. Has nothing to do with the Windows operating system which is having problems.

Its like when the carriage does not move. First you check to see if the horse is connected. Then you check to see if the horse is alive by seeing if it is breathing. DocMemory is like putting your hand in the horses mouth to see if it is alive. Has nothing to do with the carriage (Windows ME) at the other end.

Your problems sound just like my problems a few months ago. However, I did not get to the point that the computer would not start up. It may have taken me 5 or 6 hard shutdowns and restarts to get it started but it eventually made it. After that the freeze ups were less frequent until I shut it down again. I should add, that if I shut the computer down after running all day and then immediately started it back up, it wouldn't freeze up. It only froze during start up after it had set for a few hours or overnight. I blew the dust out of machine and checked the fans but everything seemed to be operating okay. Just some extra thoughts.

I've been having the same problem with my Gateway computer. I first thought it was the hard drive so I switch my 20 gig drive with an 80 gig drive, but that wasn't the problem. I was told that it might be the motherboard and did a search to see if anyone else has had the exact same problem with their pc. I found this site and after reading it called Gateway. The woman told me to do a GWScan test. Since the test didn't show anything wrong with the motherboard Gateway won't replace it. Could it still be the motherboard?