You're serious?
You killed three drives just because Windows wasn't finished writing to the disk?
Somehow ... I don't think so. You might have some other problems that caused the drives to die ... but the situation you've described is not something that should wreck a drive, much less kill three of them. If you had a technician tell you this BS ... find someone else to work on your machine!
You might end up with disk errors, or Windows might refuse to shutdown due to this kind of thing ... but this is something that can always be fixed by finding the program that is causing the shutdown to lock up, and removing it. And Scandisk, or almost any other disk utility should be able to correct the disk errors, which would be minor, in any case.
If there was any truth to this, can you imagine how many disk drives would have been ruined when the everyone was using Win98 and it had a bug that wouldn't allow the system to finish writing to the disk and shutting down? I would have made a fortune selling new drives! (Alas ... that didn't happen.) I just installed a ton of patches.
First, you need to make sure that everything unnecessary is out of your StartUp Folder.
Second, make sure that no sound file is playing when the machine attempts to shutdown. A corrupted file like this can cause problems.
Third, you should try to start the computer without loading the System.ini and the Win.ini file. If Windows starts up and shuts down correctly when these files have not been loaded, there might a problem with an entry in one of the files.
Here's how to stop them from loading:
Go to Start/Run.
Type in MSCONFIG.
On the General Tab, click Selective Startup.
Clear the Process System.ini and Process Win.ini check boxes.
Reboot, and see what happens.
If the problem is caused by an entry in one of these files, do this:
Go to Start\Run. Type in MSCONFIG
Click the System.ini tab.
Turn on the first folder by selecting the check box to the left of it.
Click OK, and then restart your computer when you are prompted to do so.
Repeat the process for each folder on the tab, until your computer fails to start or shutdown correctly. When it does, you will know that the last folder you turned on contains the entry that is causing the problem.
Clear the check box next to this folder, double-click the folder to display the entries within it, and then go through the process once more, this time turning on the entries in the folder one by one. When your computer fails to start or shutdown correctly, you will know that the last entry you turned on is the culprit that has been causing the problem.
If you don't find any faulty entries on the System.ini tab, do the whole thing, all over again, but this time with the Win.ini tab.
If you determine that a particular entry is causing the problem, leave that entry turned off, turn on the other entries on both the System.ini and Win.ini tabs, and then restart your computer.
You can leave the entry turned off as a workaround, or you can contact the manufacturer of the driver or device in order to get a new driver, or to replace the device.
If there is no problem with your .ini files, or if you found a problem and corrected it, reset your computer to Normal startup.
Fourth ... see if your anti-virus program is causing the problem. If turning it off does the trick, tell the anti-virus program to stop scanning the floppy drive when you shut down the computer.
Fifth ... turn off your Advanced Power Management. To do this:
Open the Control Panel, and select the System icon.
Click the Device Manager tab.
Double-click System Devices.
Click Advanced Power Management Support, and then go to Properties.
Select "Disable in this hardware profile.
Restart the computer and see if the problem is gone.
Sixth, see if the video card driver is the problem.
Go to Start\Run.
Type in MSCONFIG
Click Advanced, and choose the VGA 640x480x16 check box.
Reboot.
If the problem disappears, your display driver might be the wrong one, or it might be damaged.
Seventh ... see if your sound card is causing the problem.
Go to the Device Manager.
Disable each device, one at a time in your Hardware Profile.
Reboot each time, and see of the system will shut down.
If this works ... you might have reinstall the sound card driver, or look for a newer version for WinME. SoundBlaster Live! cards are becoming legendary for causing this problem (and others) with certain chipsets.
Eighth .. see if your network adapter is the problem.
Disable each device listed under Network Adapters in the Device Manager, one at a time.
Reboot ... and see if the system will shut down.
if it turns out to be a particular device ... try to get an upgraded driver, or remove the device from your computer.
Ninth ... be sure that you have no device conflicts in the Device Manager.
Tenth ... create a Startup Log File that you tell you about any problems that might occur during Shutdown. This file will be called bootlog.prv, in WinME.
Reboot the computer. Wait at least 15 seconds before rebooting. Then restart.
Hold down the Ctrl key.
From the menu that appears, choose Logged, and press Enter.
After Windows completes booting up, restart the machine. This will make a full cycle in the Log file.
Use Notepad to open the file. It should be located in the root director on the hard drive. If you can't find it, open Windows Explorer. Choose Tools\Folder Options from the Toolbar. Click the View Tab. Clear the "Hide operating system files" check box, and press F5 to refresh the screen. Then look again the for the file.
Look for lines that start with "Terminate" in the file.
Terminate=Query Drivers: Memory manager problem. You might have defective memory chips or damaged files. You might need to reinstall Windows.
Terminate=Reset Display: Display problem. Try installing an updated display adapter (video card) driver.
Terminate=RIT: Timer-related problems with the sound card or an older mouse driver. Try installing updated drivers for these devices.
Terminate=Win32: An application isn't shutting down properly. Try closing all programs before you shut down Windows.
Eleventh, you should check to see if you have a MBR or a boot-sector virus.
Finally, make sure that you don't have an incompatible version of Easy CD Creator on your system ... this has been known to cause shutdown problems in WinME.
If for some reason none of this works ... let me know, and I'll try to do some extra research and find the source of your problem.
Good luck!
Toejam31
P.S. Is this the longest entry in forum history, or what? I'll never type again ... my fingers are shot! AHHHHHH!
<font color=purple>If there was a reason for everything, having faith would be redundant.</font color=purple>
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