W2KPro loads but no icons/taskbar show.

[Stephanie]

One of the W2KPro machines in my office will go through
POST and appear to start normally. The background shows,
but no icons or taskbar are displayed. Also, at this point
the keyboard and mouse do not function. I have tried
booting in safe mode with the same result - the turquoise
background typical of the safe mode startup displays, but
no icons or taskbar and no "Safe Mode" in corners as
expected. Can somebody tell me what went wrong?

 

[Josef Stalin]

One of the W2KPro machines in my office will go through
POST and appear to start normally. The background shows,
but no icons or taskbar are displayed. Also, at this point
the keyboard and mouse do not function. I have tried
booting in safe mode with the same result - the turquoise
background typical of the safe mode startup displays, but
no icons or taskbar and no "Safe Mode" in corners as
expected. Can somebody tell me what went wrong?

Have you been running an up-to-date anti-virus program?

Have you booted up with a w98 floppy disk and looked around on the 'C'
drive? Is there any available space? Have you tried doing a chkdsk?
Another thing to try is fixboot and fixmbr. I also empty out the temp
directory (although I doubt that's the cause of your problem). These are the
first things I try when I faced with these type of unknown situation.

Uncle Joe

 

[Stephanie]

-----Original Message-----


Have you been running an up-to-date anti-virus program?

Have you booted up with a w98 floppy disk and looked around on the 'C'
drive? Is there any available space? Have you tried doing a chkdsk?
Another thing to try is fixboot and fixmbr. I also empty out the temp
directory (although I doubt that's the cause of your problem). These are the
first things I try when I faced with these type of unknown situation.

Uncle Joe

(e-mail address removed) to respond

Joe,

Thanks for your quick reply. This machine is behind a
Sonicwall with extremely up-to-date McAfee definitions, so
I don't think viruses are the issue. I made it run
Scandisk, and is says that Windows has modified the file
table (the HDD is FAT because we still are using some
MSDOS network apps), but I guess I'll try to run chkdsk
after booting to a command prompt. Am I on the right track?

Regards,
Steph

 

[Josef Stalin]

(e-mail address removed) to respond
Thanks for your quick reply. This machine is behind a
Sonicwall with extremely up-to-date McAfee definitions, so
I don't think viruses are the issue. I made it run
Scandisk, and is says that Windows has modified the file
table (the HDD is FAT because we still are using some
MSDOS network apps), but I guess I'll try to run chkdsk
after booting to a command prompt. Am I on the right track?

Regards,
Steph

Ok, viruses are out of the question.
How about free disk space?
If that computer was dumped on my lap, I would first try to do a chkdsk.
Since you have nothing to lose, and I've never had a negative effect due to
using these programs I would try fixboot and fixmbr (from the DOS command
line). You'll see some warnings that'll scare the crap out of you.
If that doesn't work, try repairing W2K with the install disk.

That's the protocol we use.

Uncle Joe

 

[Josef Stalin]

I erred. fixboot and fixmbr and not on the w98 disk. I'm tired. They're on
the W2K disk when you get the the repair console.
sorry.

 

[Steph]

Joe,
I went by the book & tried everything you recommended to
no avail. Plenty of space, but fixboot & fixmbr did
nothing to improve my scenario. Because anything sensitive
is saved to servers, blowing away the partition and re-
installing W2KPro seemed the only answer. The box in
question seems to be behaving, but intellectual curiosity
(not to mention the fact that I spent way too long on this
problem) has me wondering if I embraced the scorched-earth
policy way too early in the game. Your thoughts?

Best,
Steph

-----Original Message-----




Ok, viruses are out of the question.
How about free disk space?
If that computer was dumped on my lap, I would first try to do a chkdsk.
Since you have nothing to lose, and I've never had a negative effect due to
using these programs I would try fixboot and fixmbr (from the DOS command
line). You'll see some warnings that'll scare the crap out of you.
If that doesn't work, try repairing W2K with the install disk.

That's the protocol we use.

Uncle Joe

(e-mail address removed) to respond

 

[Josef Stalin]

Joe,
I went by the book & tried everything you recommended to
no avail. Plenty of space, but fixboot & fixmbr did
nothing to improve my scenario. Because anything sensitive
is saved to servers, blowing away the partition and re-
installing W2KPro seemed the only answer. The box in
question seems to be behaving, but intellectual curiosity
(not to mention the fact that I spent way too long on this
problem) has me wondering if I embraced the scorched-earth
policy way too early in the game. Your thoughts?

Best,
Steph

I dunno. Someone just brought me a computer that was declared utterly and
totally dead with absolutely no chance of revival. I did exactly what I
said in my previous posts:

Boot up in W2K.
go to repair console
fixboot
fixmbr
chkdsk (this is what probably fixed it).

At this point, I was able do a dir and it worked.
Had it not, I would have done a repair w2k reinstall.

The only times I have use the scorched-earth policy is on a suspected bad
disk; we get a particular brand of of hard disks and a bunch of them go
belly up. I have done some other funky repairs but you wouldn't believe
them so there's no sense in telling them.

If I had your disk here, I probably could get it up and running.

Uncle Joe.

 

[Steph]

-----Original Message-----




I dunno. Someone just brought me a computer that was declared utterly and
totally dead with absolutely no chance of revival. I did exactly what I
said in my previous posts:

Boot up in W2K.
go to repair console
fixboot
fixmbr
chkdsk (this is what probably fixed it).

At this point, I was able do a dir and it worked.
Had it not, I would have done a repair w2k reinstall.

The only times I have use the scorched-earth policy is on a suspected bad
disk; we get a particular brand of of hard disks and a bunch of them go
belly up. I have done some other funky repairs but you wouldn't believe
them so there's no sense in telling them.

If I had your disk here, I probably could get it up and running.

Uncle Joe.



.
Uncle Joe,

Thanks for all of your input - the machine is running
wonderfully as we speak. I'll look for you if I have any
future mysteries. Take care.

Steph