Microsoft KB Archive/97452

= Clean Boot Hangs Computer with a Corrupted COMMAND.COM File =

Article ID: 97452

Article Last Modified on 11/19/1999

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft MS-DOS 6.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 6.2 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q97452



SUMMARY
Pressing the F5 key when the text &quot;Starting MS-DOS...&quot; appears bypasses both the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files and passes control directly to the COMMAND.COM file in your root directory. If this copy of COMMAND.COM is either compressed or corrupted, your system stops responding (hangs). A blinking cursor remains on the screen, but no error messages are displayed.



RESOLUTION
To correct this problem, restart your system with a bootable floppy disk and copy COMMAND.COM to the root directory of your hard disk.



MORE INFORMATION
Your computer will restart normally if the following line   shell=c:\dos\command.com c:\dos\ /p is in your CONFIG.SYS file because the CONFIG.SYS file is processed before MS-DOS passes control of the system to COMMAND.COM to process the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Since use of the F5 key prevents MS-DOS from redirecting access to the COMMAND.COM file in the DOS directory (or the directory specified in the SHELL= command), MS-DOS uses the COMMAND.COM file in the root directory by default.

Additional query words: 6.22 6.00 6.20 clean boot

Keywords: KB97452

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