Strange Startup - Win 98 SE
 

Good Afternoon!

A couple of months ago I had my OS reinstalled. Apparently I was hit in a
big way and a trogan(s) wiped out my hard drive and couldn't find the OS,
hence the reinstall (done by someone else, because I didn't have the OS disc,
or startup disc either; since then I have made an emergency disc). The guy
that performed the reinstall/reformat told me that he suspected some sort of
'glitch' with the hard drive that remains but could not find nor fix it and
tells me that my system could blow in a week or a year! Sheesh. Resources
are fine (79%).

The only thing that I notice different is that upon startup I get the Compaq
screen, then a blinking cursor in a blank black screen, then the windows
loading screen, another blinking cursor on a black screen, then the windows
screen with the hourglass until the icons finally come up, THEN it finally
finishes loading. So far, this is the only problem I've run into. Really,
irritating!

I am an avid user of Spybot S&D, Avast AV, HJT, CWShredder, CleanUp!,
Spyware Blaster and AdAware6. All are updated regularly, ran, and come up
clean. I've pared down my start up files through MSCONFIG. But, when it
comes to REGEDIT, admittedly, I get a little squeamish about messing around
with Registry Keys.

One other problem (please, forgive me for this post' length)... that existed
even before the major crash: the loss of Windows Trouble Shooting files.
After hunting around a bit in the MS KB, apparently there was a patch that
removed them due to a security issue, and was directed to a MVSP page to DL
the files, but once DL'ed... it was the same thing.. no files.

I thank you (one and all) in advance for any advice or fixes you could
possibly help me with!

~Rose