Win98 Locking Up in Bootup, Repeat sound

[kopfjaeger]

Merry Christmas Ladies and Gents,

Your mission today. should you decide to accept it, is to resolve this Windows 98 bootup error.

SYMPTOM

Upon boot-up Windows 98 gets past POST and the initial Win98 splash screen. Then, as the desktop and icons are being loaded, the logon sound gets into a loop and the desktop freezes. The program icons do not finish loading and the system refuses to respond to any keyboard or mouse commands. The sound remains stuck at the first note and rapidly repeats itself until the power is cut manually.

Rebooting does not resolve the problem. Norton Tools has been used to correct errors in reporting the size of files / directories. No other errors were found by diskdoctor.

Have already tried starting machine in SAFE mode and going into System Utilities --> Startup and unclicking any program that is not necessary to machine's operation. I'm down to bare bones and it still is locking up with repeating sound.

Spooky.

Any suggestions welcome and appreciated.

Merry Christmas!

K.J.

[TOAD6147]

Unistall your soundcard and any related utilites and reboot to see what happens.

[kopfjaeger]

Problem gone, but what was that?

Instead of warm booting (Ctrl-Alt-Del or Reset) I performed a complete power down. When it powered back up, the problem was gone.

Nonetheless, what the heck was that?

Didn't have to remove any hardware or reformat my drive. What would cause such a glitch?

Cheers,

K.J.