BSOD on starup

[Soybomb]

I'm trying to help a friend with her computer, she said she had been getting BSOD's lately while using windows and ignored them. She called me today when it refused to boot. Sure enough the sytem (Win95) gives a BSOD and wont even get to a splash screen. Hmmm surface scan of the hd looked clean so I reinstalled windows...still does it. No signs of viruses. All she does it use aol to chat and send email so there is no new software or anything. Any ideas other than formatting? That modem was a huge pain to get recognized...
Thanks!

 

[Soybomb]

It will boot into safe mode as well, just not a regular boot, her startup folder is clear...

Would it be unwise to attempt an install of windows 98? I really hate to format this machine...
Thanks again

 

[Panther505]

What does the BSOD say... If you reinstalled on top of it and the issue is in the registry then you did not solve the problem... More info would help.... Post the BSOD message and we can look....

 

[Soybomb]

Ack, sh'es gone to bed so I cant post it until tomorrow. Essentially it was "a fatal exception has occured at (insert address here)." I thought that was pretty much always useless info so I didnt bother to write it down. I'll get it tomorrow though if its useful. Pressing any key always brings it up again. I've had luck with norton windoctor cleaning up registry problems but it wont' run properly in safe mode it says. Any utils to run in safe mode to check the reg?
Thanks again

 

[Wellfire]

I used to get this intermittantly because of video card glitch, changed from Matrox AGP to a Voodoo PCI card and solved this and many other quirky problems.