Getting aheadache from win98, computer crashed....

Lisa

Lisa

New Member
Hi there all.

I'm experiencing problems with somebody's win98. I installed a Ram card and wanted to clear her pc of all spyware with Spybot S&D, but when it found and fixed the problems it told me to restart the computer because it could not remove certain malware. So I did.... That's where the problems started... :mad:

On restarting and entering Windows, it started the Windows setup and prompted me for the product key. Since I didn't have it there, I tried closing the window to just go to Windows. It didn't accept ofcourse... :(

I went and got my own software to simply install WinXP for her. I already wanted to do that in the future, so why not now I thought. Well, it turned out to be a fullblown headache... :mad: When I tried to install WinXP I had to choose the partition on which I wanted to install. But neither one of her partitions seemed to have enough space. I don't want to format the C:\ drive however, because she has no backup and needs certain files from her computer. And since I can't get into Windows, I can't figure out how to make a backup of those files.

I then tried to solve the problem by using my own old Win98 install disk. But it took hours for MS scandisk to control the files, so that couldn't be right. I stopped it and tried to enter my code when prompted in the Windows environment. Not only did it not take, but when I wanted to trie a second time, it prompted me that Explorer had a missing file or whatever and that caused me to not even get into the Windows environment.

I hope you can still follow and can help me to restore this lady's computer. She's dissabled and is very dependend on her pc for keeping in contact with the rest of the world... I feel sooooooo guilty... Please help?

:confused: My question is the following:
I need to get into Windows, how do I manage that?

Some figures and stuff:
  • Pentium II
  • Win98 (first edition)
  • 194 MB RAM
  • C:\ = 2732 MB (182 MB free space)
  • D:\ = 1373 MB (1347 MB free space)
  • Not partitioned: 7 MB
What Explorer told me (translated from Dutch to English):
Explorer experienced problems regarding an invalid page caused in module Explorer.exe on 015f:00402541
Registers:
EAX: 00000000 CS=015f EIP=004002541
EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00000001 SS=0167 ESP=0080feec
EBP=0080fef4
ECX=c14d8a30 DS=0167 ESI=00000000 FS=334f
EDX=0080fefc ES=0167 EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes in CS:EIP:
8b 08 50 ff 11 8b 45 08 50 8b 08 ff 51 08 8b 45
Stackdump:
004024f0 0080fefc 0080ff34 0040547c 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 00403ab6 00000000 0059fc0c 00000001 00403ab6 00000000 0059fc0c 00000001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
Click to expand...
 
Lisa

Lisa

New Member
Nope, because I don't know how to get there...
That would however solve some problems. Can you tell me how to get in safe mode?
 
Lisa

Lisa

New Member
Btw, can you guys also tell me where I went wrong? That way I can learn something to not do it a second time...
 
Aem

Aem

New Member
You are always going to come across something you don't know how to do. Have a cup o tea, think long and hard about what you want the end result to be, and the best was of doing it, then ask someone on a helpfull forum like this before you do it. My computer is always stumping me. But that's 'cos it hates me. ;)
 
Lisa

Lisa

New Member
Okay, so I tried this afternoon...

I did get it to go to the safe mode, but when I got there it gave the same warning about Explorer...

The Dosprompt is reachable btw.

When I tried (again) to do somthing like overwrite the current version of Win98 with another version of Win98 it went to Microsoft scandisk. Mediacode & FATs didn't give a problem. Folderstructure (all translated from Dutch) turned out to be okay aswell, since I already repared numerous files yesterday.

But then we got to the Filessystem. It looks like it's looping or whatever. It says the following:
Scandisk is looking for cross-linked clusters in disk C
Click to expand...
It does that two times rapidly and then it stops at 0 % for minutes on end. Then two times rapidly again, and then 0 % for a long time again. Etcetera, etcetera... It goes on like that.

We've started this proces again today and we've left it on to do it's thing. Yesterday I stopped it after 2 1/2 hours, but today we leave it for the whole night. We'll see how it turns out.
 
Lisa

Lisa

New Member
Can somebody please try to help?

The computer stopped last night at 2.00 am, screen went into sleepmode, scandisk stopped at 1%. Not enough memory, it said.

I think we need to save the files in Dos, but I don't know how to.

Is there another option or can someone please explain how to work with Dos?
 
H

heinzbitte

New Member
'Im not sure so I don't know if you should try this unless someone else says this is right. Well could you try to take out her hard drive, set it as a slave in your computer, then save the files to your hard drive and reformat hers. I am not sure but this probably won't work, you probably need to have windows 98 also on your computer.
 
s_m_w_d

s_m_w_d

Member
look if you can get into the main windows screen your best bet is to burn a data cd of all who evers computer you broke or get a zip drive or a memory stick and backup the persons files and reboot the computer just wipe everything off and reinstall windows 98.
 
Lisa

Lisa

New Member
Tanx everybody for the help offered. :)

Turns out the harddisk was accualy broken ( :confused: That's what the computerstore said to the owner anyway :confused: ) so they bought a new pc. With WinXP already installed on it, so there's not much to be broken there. I've just installed Norton and Hitman Pro on it too.

Case closed. :)
 
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