I'm running windows 98 and my computer won't boot up. The desktop comes up empty no icons, nothing and after being on for about ten minutes i get the dreaded "this program has performed and illegal operation...." error message.

When i read the details it says spool 32 error has caused invalid page fault, or something along those lines.
I don't know exactly what i says because when i turned it on this morning of course the message would not come up.

I thought it may be a virus but last weekend when the machine was running i ran several different virus/spyware programs and came up empty.
So could this be a hard drive issue?

I'll take a wild guess. Go into Start>Run and type in msconfig. Uncheck anything to do with printers or that spool32 if its in there under the Startup tab.

The exact error message would help a lot.

i can't even get to the start menu.
i did take a screen shot of the message but it's on my desktop and i can't get to it.

Have you tried to get into Safe Mode?

How to start Windows in Safe Mode

no i haven't tried safe mode yet. will try that tonight.

Thanx

Safe mode didn't work either.

I did get the message to pop up again here she is:

Spool 32 caused an invalid page fault in module <unknown> at 0000:018112cb.

Registers:
EAX=00000001 CS=015f EIP=018112cb EFLGS=00010216
EBX=0000c164 SS=0167 ESP=01e6ff44 EBP=bff850e2
ECX=00000018 DS=0167 ESI=00000000 FS=27df
EDX=018112cb ES=0167 EDI=bff55731 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:

Stack dump:
81922180 8190bd42 ole6ffcc 000000ac 00000010 00000000
00000040 000000f0 00000200 00000000 00000008
0000c164 00000000 0003cc56 01811330 00000000

That's it anyone have any clue what this means?

Thanx

That spool32 is a virus according to the Startup Database we have here (see the top of this page).

Alright, lets try a diagnostic startup. Go to the screen where you pick Safe Mode and instead select Step by Step Confirmation. This will ask you to say yes or no to loading each file during the boot. Say yes to everything that wants to load except spool32 which you would say no to and see if you can boot that way. If that works do a virus scan, and/or find and delete spool32.

In any case do at least one scan and clean out your temp files. What anti-virus are you using?

i use Macafee that i downloaded for free from Comcast, and i also use Spyware Doctor once a week.
everytime those programs fins a virus they put it into quarantine, is there anyway the virus could have gotten out of quarantine?

Thanx for the help btw.

No, but sometimes the file that triggers the infection isn't found by a virus scanner and it then can regenerate itself. First download and run Ccleaner. Only use the Cleanup utility, not the Issues tab. Try these scanners if you can get online:

A Squared Free is the first one I'd try if I was in your situation.

Spybot

AdAware SE Personal Edition

Online scans
Trendmicro's Housecall
Panda's ActiveScan
F-Secure Virus Scan
SyGate's Trojan scan

Do you have a Windows 98 CD?

yes i have the win 98 cd.

could his have wiped out the driver for my printer btw?
when my machine was running i opened up my printer icon and there was nothing in there but add printer.

Yes, your printer driver could have become corrupted. Thats why my first response was disable spool32 at startup. That is still a valid option as spool32.exe is present in C:\Windows\System. If you can boot using Step by Step confirmation make sure you look for that in the startups (msconfig>startup tab). Certainly disconnect the printer for diagnostic purposes before you boot. You can replace spool32.exe from the 98 CD once we get you booted.

A third option is to go to the screen where you pick Safe Mode and pick Command Prompt only. When you get to C:\> type in the following, exactly as shown:

del C:\windows\system\spool32.exe

and press enter. Reboot. This will delete that file and it can be replaced from the CD using the Extract function in sfc. To do that, go to Start>Run and type in sfc. Click the radio button next to "Extract one file....." and type spool32.exe in the box. In the next screen type C:\windows\system in the "Extract to" box and browse to your CD drive with the 98 CD in it for the "Extract from" box. The next box will ask about backing up the current spool32.exe and it makes little difference if you do or not. Easiest just to go with the defaults. The file will be extracted to the proper place. Reboot.

ok i deleted spool32.exe from command prompt and the machine rebooted ok.
i then restored the file from the win98 cd and when i went to reboot same problem;nothing.
so i went back and deleted the file again and here i am now.
will not restoring this file keep me from using my printer or any other program?

As far as I know its only associated with printing, but it is a normal background process in 98. Your printer driver may contain a substitute file so if your printer won't install without spool32 then try the manufacturers driver.

Download SeaTools Desktop Edition or use the SeaTools Online Edition if you want to check to see if you have a problem with your hard drive. MemTest will test your Ram.

i actually tried to load the printer driver back on last night and everything seemed to go good until i got a message in the backround that said the computer is not recognizing my printer port. (this was done with the spool32 file still deleted.) i did not want to continue until i checked here first.

Perhaps that is what spool32 does, manage your printer port as well as the printing. Since the extracted spool32 wouldn't load either we have elimated a corrupted file. I would try those tests as the original error mentioned a "page fault" which is a memory error, either in the swap file on the hard drive or in the ram (hopefully).

i ran both the seatools and mem test and everything was ok.
last night i ran asquared and ccleaner and it came up clean.
i did run avast virus cleaner as well and it came up with two files that could not be scanned:

c:recycled\dc1477\next_steps_42______-______
c:recycled\dc1477\pr040105bigpa______-______

i opened up the recycle folder and it was empty, but when i went to empty recycle bin from the desktop it says:

cannot delete next_steps_42_____-____: cannot find the specified file. make sure you specify the correct path and filename. again i open recycle folder and nothing.

if the file is gone why does it keep showing up in the recycle bin when i try to empty it?
is this anything to worry about?
the pc seems to work fine now, other than the printer issue.

thanx again Leurgy for all your help; much appreciated.

Thats probably spyware related, don't have time to look it up right now.

Since you have Ccleaner installed, right click the recycle bin and click Run Ccleaner. This will delete whatever is in there even if it needs to be done on reboot. Maybe these files were the problem?

i thought i posted something new last night but i guess not.?

anyways i ran the ccleaner and the file is still not deleting.
the recycle folder is still empty, but it shows the bin being full on desktop.

the printer issue continues as well. i tried uninstalling then reinstalling the printer driver and during uninstall it's telling me no driver was found.
then during install it says no port found for printer. i ignored that message and continued with install that went ok the rest of the way, all files seemed to be loaded.
but when i went to print it said the printer was not installed. i then went to start\settings\printer and the printer is not there.

is the deletion of the spool32 file causing this?
if so i can i restore this file and not have the boot up issue?

Well, the printer really isn't an issue right now until we find why spool32 won't load without crashing your machine. We need to find the underlying cause, cause you won't be able to print without spool32.

Run EVEREST Free Edition, its still available from MajorGeeks and let us know what your mobo is and what it says about your hard drive and ram.

Where we are going with this is to identify your motherboard and see if reloading the chipset drivers will help.

Go into Start>Settings>Control Panel>System and look for any issues there. Probably should have done that a couple of days ago.

Ok here it is:


Motherboard Name: Gigabyte GA-7ZX -B

Motherboard Chipset: VIA VT8363(A) Apollo KT133(A)

System Memory: 256 MB (PC133 SDRAM)

There is alot of info here, i'm not sure i see the HD info where should i be looking for that?

Did you look at Device Manager?

Your Chipset Drivers are here but thats for a GA-7ZXE, which is what I am assuming you have. You can run that .exe and try to reload spool32.

Here is the Motherboard Manual if your interested.

Look under Storage>Logical Drives for the hard drive and also under Storage>ATA and Storage>Smart. Those last two are greyed out on this computer.

Has anyone been into the Bios on that machine to make any changes?

Ok i think i have it:


ST320414A (3EC0RBHC)

Seagate Barracuda ATA III 20414

I'm not sure i know what u mean by run that .exe file? Do u want me to download the chipset driver from the gigabyte.com site?

No one has been in Bios.

Yes, run the chipset driver in case there is a problem there and then try extracting spool32 again.

What you are looking for in Everest is any indication of the status of the hard drive.



Did you do that? That takes you to Device Manager and that may show a problem indicated by an ! or ?

Ok i ran the chipset driver, and restored the file but still a no go.
I went back and deleted the file again and it booted ok.

I checked the hard drive status and there is no indication of it not working properly.

Hmmmm...

Run a Thorough Scandisk and see if it reports any bad sectors in your hard drive. How much free space do you have on your drive?

Since this is an older machine, has it be cleaned lately? If not remove all the dust inside with a can of compressed air. Don't touch anything unless you first touch an unpainted area of the case to disapate any static electricity.

Have a look at the mother board for any swollen or leaking capacitors like these. You are looking for ones that have a bulging top instead of being perfectly flat.

I have about 12GB free.
I did clean it about two weeks ago, it was quite dusty in there.
I was getting the original error message before about a week before the clean and after i cleaned out the box it was running fine.
I thought maybe this was the reason for the error.
Then just last week i tried to print something and that's when the machine crapped out again.

I'll run the scandisk and check the capacitors.

I did the scan disk in safe mode and no errors were found, but after i clicked on the OK button i got an
illegal operation error that said this:

Scandskw caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.dll at 015f:bff9dba7.

I then went to reboot from the start menu and got the same error message but instead of scandskw
it was Explorer that caused the page fault.

I'm guessing that more files are corrupted.
I'm going to run the virus scan again too see if it finds anything.

There is info on troubleshooting Kernel32.dll errors here.

If you want to check for corrupted files you can run System File Checker. Put the 98 CD in the drive and go to Start>Run and type in sfc. Its the same utility you use for extracting files. Don't replace user.exe even if it wants to. After you do that you need to go to Windows update. You can also run Windows Setup and reinstall without formatting but then you will lose some updates, and will need all the Critical Updates afterward.

SFC found no corrupted files.

I'm not sure i know what u mean by windows update?
Are u talking about the security updates from the website?
And the setup is the setup.exe file from the 98 CD, right?

Yes Windows Update is from the Windows Update website accessed through the Start menu or in Internet Explorer thru the Tools menu. And yes, Setup is setup.exe on the 98 CD.

I'm running out of ideas here Still waiting to hear about Device Manager.

Ok there was one critical update which i downloaded.
Should i run windows setup now or do i have to try to restore the spool32 file first?

After i run the setup i have to go back to the updates page, correct?

Device manager was good, no conflicts everything working properly.

Windows Setup will reload all the system files so it will replace spool32. Yes go back to Windows Uodate as you will be returning your computer to an older state by using the CD. The programming will be only as current as the date the 98 CD was written.

Disconnect the printer when you run setup by reming the printer cable from the back of the computer. After setup finishes you can try to reinstall the printer after you hook it up again.

Well this can't be good.

I popped the cd in and at about 30% into the system check the following error came up:

WINOLDAP caused an invalid page fault in module KRNL386.EXE at 0001:00005ed2.

I was unable to continue with setup and had to reboot.

Well, if your hard drive passed that test and the ram passed the next thing I would do is to go into the bios and disable the L2 cache (if you actually have one) but then your machine might not boot either.

What is the motherboard, ram and CPU in this machine?

Boot to a command prompt only and type in the following to get rid of those two files:

del c:\recycled\dc1477\*.*

CPU: AMD Duron, 750 MHz (7.5 x 100)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-7ZX -B

Memory is 256MB

went to delete and file was not found.


should i still try to disable the L2 cache?
i won't try anything until tonight, gotta go to work.
let me know if you come up with anything new.

I already knew that about the specs, sorry.

Since we are grasping at straws here, I guess we need to eliminate those two files in the recycle bin to be sure they are not part of this problem. See if you can find the correct path to those two files as we seem to have it wrong. Show the hidden files (How to see hidden files in Windows) and then see if you can see them. You can try using Pocket KillBox if you can't get rid of them any other way.

Those files were no where to be found.

I did try setup from the 98 cd and think i screwed something up. Was it supposed to reinstall 98?

I did get it to start the install then the spool32 error message popped back up and i continued but the machine locked up. I restarted but nothing came up, i took the cd out put it back in and nothing.

Is there anyway to get the machine back to the way it was before i tried the install, or should i just start from scatch and re install 98 if i even can, or should i just buy a new machine?!?

Yes, the idea was to re-install 98 by running setup. Not much else to try at this point.

Is the machine not booting at all now?

If the machine runs without spool32 then it can still be used for anything except printing. This has come down to a hardware problem I think, maybe the motherboard. I can't think of anything else to try but if I do I'll let you know.

no it doesn't boot, just a blank screen.
then minutes later a screen comes up asking me for my password for microsoft networking. then the error message pops up.

It had about 12 minutes left on the install before it crapped out.

Use F8 and go to a Comand Prompt only and at C:\> type in:

scanreg /restore

This will restore a previous registry. Pick the newest one that says Started. Hopefully that will let you boot.

Try deleting spool32 again as it may have been put back.

ok i'm back up.

thanx again for the help.

Glad to hear its working again.

I found this Microsoft KB How to Troubleshoot Spool32 Error Messages. Maybe that will help.

I went to another forum too see if anyone had any ideas on what to do and this guy gave me two options:

1) Find the file from another win98 installation and copy it to yours or
2) Backup what you can, format and reinstall windows.

Seeing as the first option probably isn't going to happen do u agree on option number two?

If so how do i go about doing all of this?

Well, we know that option 1 won't work as we have already replaced the file with a known good copy from your 98 CD. Option 2 doesn't sound likely as setup won't run when you tried to reinstall Windows over itself, so therefore it may not complete even after a format. However if you want to try it a very knowledgeable fellow who calls himself Train has written a guide to reinstalling 98 that can be found here. If you decide to do that, scroll down to "Restart leaving the EBD boot floppy in the floppy drive" and start there. That "Wipe Out" program he mentions is not neccessary in this case.

I'd hate to do all that just to use the printer. I guess i can live without it as long as the machine works.
Doesn't 98 have some kind of file repair function or did we already try that?

That was SFC (System File Checker). We've run that and replaced spool32, checked the hard drive and ram, reloaded the chipset drivers, checked the capacitors so I can only surmise that its a motherboard issue.

If you go into the Bios and enable S.M.A.R.T. for Hard Drives (see page 52 in the motherboard manual I linked to earlier) and there is a problem with the drive you will see an error message when you boot. This won't stop you from booting but could be useful info. To access the Bios "press Del to enter setup" when you see that message at boot.

If you want to try a workaround, go to page 67 in the motherboard manual. You will see 4 sections titled "Parallel Port". Notice the Default Values. You can try changing "OnBoard Parallel port" to one of the first three as shown below. This will force the printer to use a different memory address and may cure the problem. If not, reset the default value.

378 Enable onboard LPT port and address to 378.
278 Enable onboard LPT port and address to 278.
3BC Enable onboard LPT port and address to 3BC.
Auto Set onboard LPT port to Auto. (Default Value)
Disabled Disable onboard LPT port.

When making changes in the bios, when the change is made, press ESC to return to the main bios page then press F10 to save your changes and exit and press Y then enter to reboot with the change applied.

I booted with the S.M.A.R.T. enabled and no errors were found.

I'll give the workaround a try tonight.

You seem to have more than one computer. Is the 98 machine on the same internet connection as the one you are using? Do you have a router?

i only have one, the one i'm on during the day is at work.