Topic: Start Up Problem

[Michelle]

Right here's another one that i wonder if you can help me with. Be kind, you know how thick I am on these things by now  

Right my friends computer .. when you switch it on it goes to a like dos screen and says press any key to start up (or boot up) and then it starts up fine, loads windows etc. He's had the problem for ages, couldn't find out what it is so just does that everytime he switches on the puter.
He's using windows98 - not sure what other info you might need. Thanks  

[Simon]

It's probably something in the BIOS boot options, Michelle, but I could be wrong, so I'll let someone who knows a bit more take it from here!  

[Michelle]

Okay right ........ erm.  

 I'll wait then and see what the others say.  I bet they need more info and I've got no more than that, but I can find it out.

[Sandra]

At which point does this screen appear Michelle ?
Is it after its detected the primary and secondary drives ?
As Simon said it may be the boot sequence in BIOS that isnt set as normal.
Depending on which BIOS it is try setting the boot sequensce to A,C,CD-Rom.
If its the BIOS that has first,second and third boot devices then set the first as Floppy,second as IDE-0 and third as CD-Rom :doggie:

[Michelle]

hmmm it does go through the list of checks is that the bios? I don't know lol - I'll have to ask what it comes up with I think and let you know. Thanks sandra.

[Sandra]

The first screen on starting shows it detecting the bios version and then the memory and then the primary and secondary master and slave drives that are installed,at the bottom of this page it will have press Del for setup or similar.
The second screen is more detailed information,in an outlined box,about the drives and memory.
Then the windows logo should appear,sometimes it goes off leaving a blank screen with the hourglass on then the windows logo reappears and it should start in windows properly from there.
Has it ever had a dual bootable OS on it as you know Michelle or has it always just had the one one as now ?

[Michelle]

I think its at the end almost of the second screen sandra.

[Sandra]

I think thats the point where it should be loading the system files but I cant think why its not doing it until you press a key to load them  
Check the BIOS anyway Michelle and see what the boot sequence is set as :doggie:

[Michelle]

Okay thanks sandra, I have a feeling it comes up with a message too about something not loading or something, its been a while since I saw it. So I'll let you know.

 

[Adept]

It's probably a DOS driver or low level Windows driver missing Michelle.

The error message can sometimes appear if a progam has been removed by deleting the folder that contains it rether than using add/remove programs in Control Panel.

If you can get us the exact error message, we can tell you more