meantime I should perhaps have pointed out
that in safe mode, the CD drive is not seen by Windows,
even though in Device Manager it's there and is seemingly trouble free.

Paul, this is a 'red herring'! You will NOT see the CD-ROM in Windows
Explorer in Safe Mode - the drivers are not loaded until it boots into
Normal Mode.

As for scandisk, try running it in Real Mode DOS, using your WinMe Startup
(floppy) Disk. (It *may* even give you more insight to the cause of the
Checksum error) And maybe there is a clue with your comment "necessitating a
gentle wiggle of the screen or a tap on the side or a closing and reopening
of the lid" - Mmm ... suspicious. Loose RAM chip (or worse!) perhaps?

Mart


"Paul" wrote in message
...

Just to follow up - I tried what you recommended, after 6 attempts to get
the thing to boot up - nothing other than what I previously reported was
evidident. The date and time were ok, but scandisk refuses to operate

Paul


"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
This looks like a hardware problem to me - either the CMOS battery is
dying, or your motherboard.

Try removing the main battery from the laptop, and unplugging from the
mains - leave it for half an hour.
Then attach to the mains again, and reboot - what exact errors do you get
in trying to boot to Safe Mode?? Note especially any time/date errors.


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Paul" wrote in message
news
I'm running a Toshiba S1800-400 LapTop, running ME. Suddenly it's
starting to play up with windows freezing producing either: -

OE 017F BFF8E64B or
OE 0167 BFF9A0F

BSOD's

Now it's refusing to boot past the safemode startup - if I check start
windows normally, it just comes back to the safemode option. Booting up
to safemode usually hangs the os after a minute or two and when booting,
now shows "Bad Checksum (Rom)"

I noticed prior to these problems, that boot up sometimes didn't occur
until I tapped the Laptop and also sometimes the os would freeze when
inserting a cd or dvd rom.

Am I suspecting a damaged or broken CD/DVD Rom drive?

Anyone else have this problem or could give me advice please?

TIA

Paul




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