Computer Won't Load Windows with Drivers

[Trafton AT]

OK...Here's a problem that I have asked many people yet can not find a solution for. I have a Windows 98 desktop with a PII-450 and 64MB of RAM from way back in 1998. The computer worked fine, excluding the fan sometimes coming loose and causing moderate overheating problems. Now, it has refused to boot when drivers are enabled. At first, it would just freeze, no questions asked after loading a few programs in normal mode. In safe mode, it would display the "welcome to safe mode message box" and when OK is pressed, Explorer would crash, causing safe mode to restart with the message box. This continues in an infinite loop. I ran Norton SystemWorks 2001 from DOS and it discovered that I had three cross-linked files/folders: C:\scandisk.log, C:\Windows\Temp\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE4\J<Random characters I have forgotten), and the Norton LiveUpdate folder were all cross-linked. I fixed this using Norton, but then opted out of the surface scan after (taking into consideration the empty part of my hard drive and rotating speed) I calculated that the surface scan would take more than 24 hours. Due to the overheating issue I mentioned earlier, I couldn't leave it on overnight. But before I ran this scan, I found out that disabling the "Load all drivers" option in the Step-by-step configuration would let the system boot, with 16-bit colors, no sound, and no Internet support, though. Shortly before I ran SystemWorks, when I chose to boot with "Load all drivers" enabled, it became that instead of booting and then crashing, the computer just automatically restarts after the "Loading Windows 98 Screen." I also noticed, but fixed, a corrupted SYSTEM.INI with junk characters before the real data. Disabling SYSTEM.INI at startup does not help anything. Now, I'm thinking that the only option would to reinstall Windows, short of taking forever to figure out what the exact problem is amid many other problems that likely have nothing to do with this. The only thing I did that effected system properties lately was to change the resolution from 600x480 to 1240x620 (or whatever it is, I always forget.) The operating system running is Windows 98 First Edition. I have a recently updated Norton, though it hasn't been updated in a week due to the update ("LiveUpdate") file being cross-linked. This issue is stopping me from playing Jazz 2, and is driving me crazy. I think that I'll try reinstalling Windows. Any suggestions?

(Sorry for the long message, this is a complex one.)

Edit: I just wanted to mention that I have 325 files on the root of C:. I've heard this could cause problems, but I dobut that going over the limit alone could cause all these troubles. But, just in case, I wanted to mention that.

Thanks for actually reading this. ;-P

[Trafton AT]

Also, would there be any way to load the drivers to operate a cable modem without choosing the "load all drivers" option?

If I could just get on to mIRC, I would be happy for now. Also, I checked AUTOEXEC.BAT and there is no command in there to restart.

[Link]

Choose selective startup in the boot menu (by pressing F8, or in the safe-mode-crash-recovery menu). Then you can go through and figure out the individual thing that causes the computer to crash.

[Trafton AT]

I did.
It was the Load All Drivers option, as I mentioned in my previous message.

After reinstalling Windows twice, rebooting the modem, and reinstalling a bunch of drivers, it's fixed, but I would still really like to know what caused it and how to prevent it in the future.

I tried all the obvious steps, I'm not that computer illetarut. ;-P

[Link]

Hmm...when I go through the step-by-step confirmation it let me select what individual drivers I wanted (as well as the stuff in .sys and .bat). Maybe if you select "No" for "Load all drivers"?

Also, do you have Norton Antivirus 2002? Because its network capture driver conflicts with other capture drivers. That is what caused almost this exact problem for me before.

[Trafton AT]

Yes, in fact, I do have NAV 2003. I tried loading the drivers one by one, but I can't do that now since the is fixed. =)