Help and advice needed please !

B

Bonamy

New Member
Hi,

My computer wont boot, sits on Windows 98 page and then goes to startup menu and says select command prompt only,and says to check Scanreg.

Once Scanreg etc selected advises of "not enough memory" "no extended memory driver is loaded on your computer". I Hit ok and it goes to C:\> looking for a command. Can the computer be rebooted from this point ? I have a startup floppy disk but i cant get it to read A drive ( not that i know how to get it to either ).

Can you shed some light on this please and advise if you have a solution or something to try.

Also, computer was fine when last shutdown and hasnt been on internet for over a year. Never showed any sign of an issue.

Many thanks, Bon.
 
At the C: prompt have you tried to restore the registry by typing in "scanreg /restore", it may be missing the pointer to HIMEM.SYS.
If this doesn't work then you may have to replace the file HIMEM.SYS, though this could be difficult if you can't get the floppy to work.
 
Ok,

Have selected Sacnreg/restore and it went to the blue screen and said at bottom "Backing up system files" it appears to be doing nothing but it did go to this screen so thats something !

I have got the floppy and cd for Win98 but i cant get it to open either, but i may be asking the wrong things is what im thinking.

Will leave on for a while on the blue screen and see what happens, anything else i can do would be appreciated.

Cheers, Bon.
 
HI,
After leaving for ages nothing further happened in the blue restore screen.

Although after all the normal noises and sequence etc at start up , when it stops loading and has the windows page, i can hear a faint ticking like a tick a second, at this point the computer activity light stays on instead of flashing.

When it moves to the start menu it says select "command prompt only"mode.
It also says Warning. Windows has detected a Registry/Configuration error.

From here it wont do anything with SCANREG or SCANDISK.

Is it the Hard drive that we should look at recovering data from or is there a procedure or startup disc or PC utility i need to access?

What should i try next ?

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks.
 
The "activity light" is for the hard drive. If that stays on constantly and doesn't ever stop, something's gone wrong.
 
Well heres where its up to.

Took to the tech and removed HDD and tried to access on the bench as D drive etc. Wouldnt open for ages and thought or processed for a few minutes. It then commented that the disc wasnt formatted and could not be acesssed. They decided to reformatt the drive and then use their recovery program to collect all the drive contents.

Its collected about 95 % of data in 1.5hrs and is now going slowly, the time remaining started to go up and went down to one minute and has gradually gone up to 10 minutes. They said it can take some time to complete. it also said it hard an error in one partition.

What do you think the outcome will be ?

Your thoughts please.
 
^ that

You planning on replacing the hard disk? (I assume so since it's dead...just thought I'd ask)
 
Well, still going on . Tech rang and said his recovery found no useable data.

He will use a Seagate tool overnight as its a Seagate HDD. Says may be a chance but a slim one that anytghing will be recovered. See what he says in the morning.

Yep, in the mean time have ordered a new machine from him. This time it will have more than a Floppy disk for saving !

Fortunately I zipped and saved my accounts to the floppy early January, so will reinstall them on new one.

My wife aint very pleased I Gotta say, lost a few pictures, oh well no one ever saw them on the computer so the greiving will pass ( I hope ).

Tech has been good, ensuring i will have backup, and my wife will be putting all her pictures on the kids computer and backing them up herself ! ( SO its been and going to be an education.

Will keep you informed.

BON
 
Sad news !

Its dead, nothing to recover without sending to a lab with big $$.:(

Not to worry, have reinstalled most i need onto another machine and all is much better.:D

I actually was spared the death penalty as i found 1600 pics on another PC that i have no recolection of ever transferring ! I must say it was very close to divorce for several hours, you married guys will know what im saying here.;)

I have just done 7 hours of paperwork to bring my records up to speed, it was fun ( Kinda not ) as thats the way we used to do our accounting before computers, so looked at it as a trip down memory lane. At least i will have
6th Feb onwards on soft copy and 2boxs of paperwork.

I have learnt a valuable lesson here and let it be a lesson to those that think the computer wont crash, i know now its when and not if it will crash.

Outcomes,
I now have 2 machines that are capable of writing DVDs and a stack of DVDs ready to backup everything.

I will no longer be lazy at backing up.

And, I appreciate all your feedback previous, it was certainly a reality check !

Cheers for now, BON.:):good:
 
There are two types of people in this world as you have learned Bonamy. There are those who back up their valued data and those who wish they would have backed it up. Even a brand new hard drive can fail.
 
Backing up to DVD

Im back for more advice please.

ok im backing up my new data.

Now, this may seem a silly question, but here goes.

I am backing up on DVD-R 16x disks. I saved only the basic data yesterday to have a go at using the DVD drive etc. After adding a lot more data today went to back up on the same disc and it would not save to that disk.

Is that normal, as in you only get to record on them as a 1 off go. ie what goes on that burn is all that can be done or am i missing something in the process. I put in another disc and it recorded fine. As its all my setup data, i also put it on a 1GB USB drive, also can someone advise if USB drives are reliable as a backup as a guy told me they to can fail like a HDD !

Thanks for your advice in advance.

BON
 
It looks like you had the setting ticked to "Finalize the disk", this won't allow you to add any more data so look for that tickbox in your burning software setup. Untick it and it will allow you to add more data at a later date.

I would never rely on a USB stick for longevity of data, short term fine but not for long term.
 
Thanks TFT for that.

I have looked everywhere im game to find that setting tick, and havent.

Can i get some advice on where that may be located please.

Thanks BON.
 
Now you got me:D
I'm in front of XP at work, I only have W7 at home so if you are using W7's burning software then someone else might chime in.
But look for anything that will allow you not to "finalize" or "close" the DVD.
 
I'm guessing that the finalisation option only appears when you're actually about to burn a disc, so go through motions of burning a disc and look for it then. Consider DVD-RW which can be re-written to. You could have three or more sets which you cycle through.

Windows 98 in 2010?? I guess it does for some people...
 
Ok
Just put in a new disk to see what occurs.

It is asking how do you want to use this disk

A. Like a usb flash drive - Save,edit,delete files on the disc anytime. This disc will work on computers running XP or later ( I have W7 ).

B. With a cd/dvd player. - Burns files in groups and individual files cant be edited or removed after burning. The disc will also work on most computers ( Mastered ).

Im sure i was saving as B so will give A a try.

Does this ring a bell with you guys ?

BON
 
Ok it worked as the USB under setting A. saved the data twice with 2 differing names and opened on my other computer and both there !

Yay another newbie successful night.

Thanks for your asistance, appreciated.

Cheers BON.
 
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