I just ghosted/replaced hard drive on a Gateway desktop. When I try to shutdown, it hangs at a blinking cursor screen and will not completely shutdown. It was not doing this on the old hard drive. I have reinstalled Win 98 SE and installed the special Win 98 SE shutdown patch--still same problem.

Any thoughts??

Before shutting down the computer try running MSconfig from the START> run menu. Choose the startup tab. The items listed there are the processes running. Something there is not shutting down properly. Try unticking these items one by one until you isolate the offending entry. If this entry isn't needed simply leave unticked. If needed, post back here for further help. Microsoft Knowledge base has many articles on this issue. Find the KBase under windows support. Enter keywords and GO.

KB article; 238096 - Problems Shutting Down Windows 98 Second Edition

(This article was previously published under Q238096)

How large is the new hard drive? Did you install a drive overlay on it?

I have had chronic shutdown/freeze problems with my 5 yo comp running Win98SE.

In the last 2 years or so had probs with shutting to a black screen with blinking cursor (this seems similar to yours). Also the shutdown problem only occurred when the computer was not switched off immediately after use - say 15 minutes or more.

Finally I have now disabled IRQ Steering in PCI Bus and guess what - It Works. Well enough anyway - I still get the black screen but only for about 15 secs then it shuts down properly.

My information came from the same source that Dan Penny (above) suggested - here is the link if you have not yet visited microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=238096&product=w98#kb2

Good luck.