| Obligatory Preamble |
Understanding the troubleshooting process is vital to getting a system up and running as soon as possible. Without going through a specific process, it becomes difficult to determine where the actual problem may lie.
Write down everything you know about the machine. Keep a record of what goes on and what is tried at least until the problem is solved. Ideally, keep the record after that in case it ever happens again.
Below are a list of questions that should be answered before any other steps are taken in troubleshooting a Windows machine:
- What is wrong?
"The computer doesn't work" isn't good enough. "I'm getting a General Protection fault every time I start Word Perfect" is better. Without knowing the exact problem, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. Get a detailed description of the problem.
- When did it start happening?
Was it first thing this morning, last night, or has it been going on for a number of months? Is this a new installation of Windows?
- What has changed?
This is very important! 9 times out of 10, what's changed is the root of the problem, and changing it back will fix it. If it can't be changed back, there is at least a place to start.
Once these questions
are answered, you'll already have the beginning of the troubleshooting
process done. From that point, the error will need to be isolated and a
fix found. The rest of this Web area is dedicated to explaining
different troubleshooting areas and how to use them. |
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| What's
in Your Bootlog File |
| While the road to
loading Windows is paved with good intentions, there are usually some bumps along the way. You may not "feel" every bump, however.
The boot-up process is logged in a file titled BOOTLOG.TXT (found in your root folder.) Therein, you'll
find both load successes and failures. You probably don't wanna know what's right as
much as you'll want to fix what's wrong. Go ahead and load that puppy (BOOTLOG.TXT)
into Wordpad. Then, simply 'Find' every instance of the word 'Fail.' Chances are, you're
missing a few device drivers... which can most likely be found on your Windows install
CD. Put "found" missing files somewhere in your path (like your Windows \ System
folder) and try booting again. This is just another troubleshooting trick; if Windows
doesn't log its boot process, add the line: "DISABLELOG=0" (without the quotes) to
your MSDOS.SYS. |
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| You
Wont Believe This One... |
| "During
normal operation or in Safe mode, your computer may play
'Fur Elise' or 'It's a Small, Small World' seemingly at random.
This is an indication sent to the PC speaker from the computer's
BIOS that the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or that
the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance. This is a design feature of a
detection circuit and system BIOSes developed
by Award/Unicore from 1997 on." |
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| File
this Away for Future Use... |
| Don't
wanna lose any of your settings or software? Supposedly, there's a
command line option that'll get you back on your feet in no time.
"Boot up your PC with a Windows 98 boot disk, pop in your Windows
98 CD, and once you're at the command prompt, type your CD-ROM drive
letter immediately followed by a colon. So, if your CD was set to
"D" -- you'd enter D: and then hit ENTER. At this point,
you'll type the following command: SETUP /pf (exactly as shown.) This
switch will restore all of Windows' critical files to their
"factory state," and in 99% of situations, doing this will fix
whatever problems you were having in Windows 98. |
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| ScanDisk
Switches |
| To
give these a spin, you can either use the command prompt or the Run
command line. Click the Start button, select Run, then type: 'SCANDSKW'
(sans apostrophes.) Don't be too quick to hit ENTER; you may wanna use
these switches first. 'SCANDSKW /A' will auto-select your fixed (hard)
drives for scanning and possible repairing; 'SCANDSKW /N' will allow you
to start rocking and rolling right away, with no prompting or clicking
necessary; 'SCANDSKW /P' enables Scandisk's preview mode, which will
keep it from making any necessary changes to your system; and 'SCANDSKW
/SILENT' will totally cut you off from configuring the session any
further (good for using in controlled environments.) |
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Graphics by: w@r10ck