"com surrogate"?

Please tell what operating system, model of computer, network card,when it happens, if you can boot normally etc. My guess is that You have Win '98 you could go back to a restore point, or make a set of startup disks, and always make a bootdisk. Use these to start the system if the problem still exists then it's a com or communication problem either with the usart or driver for the com ports or cardslots. Once You can get it to work normally with the startup disk, or bootdisk, or safe mode then you have narrowed the problem to a driver or software incompatability. Hope this helps.

Clark
May 2008