My Windows 98SE computer has developed a problem.

I can select Start, ShutDown, Restart and everything is good. It
restarts and runs good.

If I select Start, Shutdown, let it shutdown and power off the computer
using the power switch on the computer, the next time I start the
computer it hangs after everything loads and windows is up and running.

If I turn the power off to the computer using the power switching device
sitting under my monitor, the computer boots to windows but it runs
Scandisk. I stop Scandisk and windows is up and running.

I then run Scandisk and it has a few errors, one in particular was:

"The allocation chain for 'rb002.cab' in the'C:\Windows\Sysbckup' folder
indicates that part of this file or folder is stored in an invalid
location. Your computer uses the allocation chain to track where each of
your files and folders is stored."

I select "Repair by truncating the file" and Windows is up and running
and I don't have any computer problems. On more than one occasion the
lost clusters I save as a .chk file relate to rb00x.cab, the x is a
number from 1 to 5.

I've compared the .chk file to the corresponding rb00x.cab file and the
..chk file has data from my Daily Planner (AnyTimeDeluxe 9.1) that is not
in the rb00x.cab file.

I've taken everything out of my Start folder so I'm only loading
StillImageMonitor, ScanRegistry, SystemTray, TweakUI and EM_EXEC (my
logitech mouse driver).

Before it freezes, the mouse is working but the computer freezes with
the hourglass on the mouse. Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't work.

I have troubleshot this machine until I'm cross-eyed and have not been
able to fix the problem. I've used Google, this newsgroup and the MS
knowledge base to research troubleshooting Windows 98 Start and ShutDown
problems. None of the troubleshooting has fixed the problem.

What is the difference between a cold boot and a warm boot? What process
is different that is causing the freeze?

--

JD..