Hopefully someone can help me with this please:
I started my laptop yesterday and it started booting up, then stopped and re-booted again. After this happened several times, I pressed F8 on the start-up, and then went into safe mode.
I then did a system restore to the last restore date (that I manually did a few days earlier), and re-booted.
The start-up up did take a lot longer, but did manage to boot, and everything seemed fine after that.
I then decided to re-boot just to see if the problem had been rectified, and it went back to starting up and then re-booting over again. Once again I pressed F8 and clicked the option "Last Known Good Configuration". I then went through the troubleshooter for start-up problems, and ran 'msconfig'.
I clicked on 'selective start-up' and it then brought up errors on the re-boot. After more troubleshooting, I identified the problems as these 3 startup systems: wireless configuration, keyhook, and utility tray.
I then had had enough and tried to re-boot in 'normal' mode. However it kept going back to the 'diagnostic mode' rather then the 'normal' mode. I also cannot do a system restore because the date is not highlighted in bold anymore.
So, it seems that I have start-up issues
Please note, I do not have any internet connection on this particular machine as I am in the process of switching to broadband from dial-up. I am accessing the internet and this forum away from my machine at home.

Just another thing.
I recently in another forum on this site had a virus removed from the machine.
I dont know if it is possible this process of removal knocked out drivers/settings etc?

Hello,
Last issue first. Yes, virus removal can cause issues with other software (drivers, winsock, ETc...)
I am not qualified to give mal-ware advice, however your Internet connection issue is technical...
Please download winsockfix from this site.
Or read this Microsoft artical.
Winsockfix is easy to use, just follow the directions.
When you use msconfig you must use care on what you uncheck.
That said, in the lower left hand of the pop up that tells you that you are running in diagnostic (or selective) start up there is a box that says "do not show this messege again".
Put a check in that box and click "OK".
The system restore point is not highlighted any more because you are at that point now.
(The purple words are links for you to click on)

This post has been edited by hfcg: Aug 19 2008, 08:34 PM

Save the download to a flash drive and copy it to the machine that will not connect to the Internet

Hi there,

Sorry for confusion, but the winsockfix appears to be a tool for solving internet issues?
I am not having issues with the internet, rather I am having trouble with the start-up of windows, and getting back to 'normal' mode

Thanks for your help.

Of course, I did not read the original post closely enough.
You can always open msconfig and click normal mode. You may have to select start up and check the box that says check all.

Hi again,
I did try doing this last night with msconfig, but the system just reboots straight back into this 'diagnosis' mode with the different coloured toolbar and limited applications. msconfig pops up as soon as the system reboots. I cannot seem to get back into 'normal' mode.

HI Addo,

please correct me if i am wrong as the advice wont work if i misunderstood you

you had a virus, it got removed, after that starting windows was not possible, using system restore you got it into windows and then using msconfig found that 3 applications were causing problems.

The issue now is you cannot get the machine to boot back into normal mode after beeing in Diagnostic mode is this correctly understood?

What did you do to get back into normal mode? as msconfig will keep rebooting back into diagnostic mode if you dont reenable normal startup. it is not clear to me if you did that?

it is done by starting msconfig again, click normal start up and restart.

if you have done this but it still boots into diagnostic mode, please tell me when you start msconfig in diagnostic mode does it show up as if it is set to start in normal mode or does it show up as if choosen "selective start" if it after setting it to normal start still shows itself as to be set to selective start after a reboot could be that the solution would be to manually fix the changes that msconfig does to the registry *this is rather complicated so i dont recommend it unless nothing else work.

Have you the possibility of going to another restore point?

also does there seem to be a reason it is starting in diagnostic mode? any error screens or application failures? please check event viewer it can be found
Start menu > settings > kontrol panel > administrative tools > event viewer,
looking especially at system events and application events.

Hi Surfer 99,
ok, the latest update is that I have got the system back into 'normal' mode. I did have to go in and manually fix the changes that msconfig did to the registry. Every thing is back working as is it was.

So, now I have it back in normal mode the only issues that I have is with the startup.
The machine still seems to take quite a while starting up, and once I log on I have 2 errors that pop up.
Both refer to an 'entry point not found'. One is for 'keyhook.exe' and the other is 'systray.exe'. I have also noticed that the virus protection that I am using 'PC Tools Spyware Doctor' now appears as disconnected.

Thanyou very much for your help