fatal error at startup

Heya people,

I'm having a problem starting windows. If I try in normal mode then it will say that several of my files have been deleted or are corrupt. If I continue then it will give me a fatal error message at 0015:00000009 right after the corrupt message for the vswp.vxd file. In safe mode it gives the fatal error message without any prompting. The address is different too. I think it's 0017:0000xxxx (I can't remember exactly). I can't get into windows at all. If anyone can help, I would appreciate it.

 

Hi,

This vxd seems to belong to a driver for a Yamaha MIDPLUG and/or
S-YG20/S-YXG50 SoftSynthesizer.
Are you still running this device?

If so, maybe you should reinstall the driver.

Good luck,

 

Several of your Files have been deleted or are corrupt? That's key. What are the names of those files please?
Also, what Operating sysem are you running?

 

Sorry, I may not have given all the info. It's Windows98. When I try to boot, I get a message saying that dfs.vxd is corrupt or missing. When I press enter then it says that mtrate.vxd is corrupt or missing, so I press enter and then it says that vswp.vxd is corrupt or missing. After that, it tries to load and I get the fatal error. I have had trouble booting before and have just ended up reformatting and reinstalling from the recovery disk. It has happened three times recently, about a month and a half apart each time. But the other times there were other files that were corrupt or missing. Thanks so much for respondinf so quickly. I welcome as much help as I can get.

 

Vswp.vxd seems to belong to the Yamaha driver we mentioned earlier., Do you still have the device?

Dfs.vxd can be restored either through SFC, or by uninstalling and reinstalling the Client for Microsoft Networks in Control Panel/Network.

Grtz.

 

You cannot get into windows at all. Tony's suggestions may be good, however, you cannot use them. I think you need to do a diagnostic on your disk. If you are having file corruptionand /or missing files, you may have bad sectors. Perform a scandisk from DOS. Thorough. See what those results are.

Then we can see about getting you back into windows.

 

I have run the registry checker and scandisk, but no errors were found. I've tried running the step-by-step confirmation and hit no on the prompt to load all windows drivers, which was another suggestion I saw, but that gave me the fatal error as well. I really appreciate you guys trying to help me. Anything else you might know about?

Oh, and the Yamaha driver was preinstalled I think. I've never used it or uninstalled it, so I guess it's still on there.

 

I meant for you to run the surface test. You have a problem. You could have a hard drive problem or RAM or Overheating. Something is causing you to lose or corrupt drivers. Try the step by step again. At the point where you get the fatal exception, note the details and what is loading when it happens. Then go back and do again. This time say no to loading those. See if you can at least get into Safe Mode using this method. Then you can tru the SCF and reinstall of Client for Microsoft Networks as advised.

 

Hey guys,

Thanks for all of the ideas. I did run the thorough scan with a surface test. The only error was incorrectly reported free space. It fixed that and Windows still doesn't load. On the step-by-step confirmation, it starts to load and I get the Windows 98 screen with the clouds and the moving blue line down at the bottom. Then it flashes the black screen for a split second, too fast to see anything, and then goes directly into the Fatal Error screen. How do I find out what it's hanging up on?

Thanks a bunch.

 

Have you tried tapping the F 8 key while the computer is starting and selecting safemode from the menu?

 

Yeah. I get a fatal error message when I try to start in safe mode too.

 

Ok, it ends up at the blue screen, can you post the exact message?

From the safemode boot....

 

Hey Aca,

I'm not at home near my computer at the moment, but I'm pretty sure which message is which. In normal mode I get the fatal error message at 017F:0000009. When I try in safe mode I get fatal error at 0015:0000013. If you know anything, I would appreciate it.

Thanks

 

Try this first:

Restart your computer and go to the Startup Menu again. Choose Step By Step Confirmation, and say no to loading the autoexec.bat and config.sys . Say yes to everything else. This step does not load the autoexec.bat or config.sys (real mode drivers). If the system boots, search the autoexec.bat and config.sys for problem lines, or even lines you don't recognize. Quite often, there are lines like virus detection, caches for Cyrix chips, and other junk loading in the autoexec.bat or config.sys. Rem'ing these lines out usually doesn't hurt, but you might want to make a copy of these two files before you play with them.

If that doesn't get you into safemode, more than likely you're going to need to rename your registry files and run setup again.

Also, do you have Quicken or Quickbooks installed? If so, did you recently make any changes or upgrades?

 

I'll try that step-by-step conf when I get home and see if that works. I don't have quicken or quickbooks. I've heard several things about bad RAM. Do you think that some memory could work for a while and then go bad? I put some more memory in at the beginning of the year.

I like the picture, Aca.