Help!! Windows won't boot!

[vfaulkner]

If anyone can help...
Earlier today, I was checking email in Outlook 2000, checked a link in a newsletter to open IE5.5x when appeared several 'blue screens'.
When I did the 3 fingered salute, and the system shutdown, on reboot I was told to:
Choose Command Prompt only (on Setup menu)and run SCANREG.
and that Registry errors were found &
HIMEM.SYS, CONFIGSYS, IFSHLP.SYS were missing and/or corrupt;
and WIN.COM couldnot be found and Windows could not continue to load.
leaving then a C:\ prompt
typing SCANREG was invalid in any way or form.

Calling Tech Support was of no help.

I can navigate my files through DOS but was wondering
1. how do I fix this and restore Windows
2. and/or is it possible to copy files from W98 to disk in DOS in case I need wipe the HD?
I have some files that I had yet had time backup from the weekend... :-(

VF

[tammster37601]

try to get a step by step confirmation see is any file is missing if it is then use your win 98 boot disk to restore the files that are missing. hope this helps
Tammy
Ps
During the installation of windows it creates a file called Detcrash.log take a look at this also to see what happen use the edit command from the prompt.

[flood6]

http://www.redhat.com/

...just kidding. You obviously have access to a diffrent computer, try plugging the misbehaving hard drive into the alternate computer, boot from the good drive and try digging around the broke driveto see if you can solve the problem that way. Maybe you can copy the lost/corrupt files from the working puter to the broke hard drive. It might give you another idea..

Anyway, just a suggestion, I have recovered more than a few crashed drives that way.

Good luck.

[EJRS.COM]

The exact same thing happened to my friend 2 days ago and we took it to a computer repair shop but they said they were unable to restore the data. I am hoping to find a shop that knows how to do so.

[btg]

Hi,
The reason you cannot run scanreg at dos prompt, because it is not in the root dir C:/
Go to C:/ and type c:/ dir/p
This will show all the files in C: drive bit by bit so as you can view them.
I am not quite sure, but scanreg is in the command dir.
just checkout the directories till you fiond where it is and the go to c: prompt and type cd (and then the directory where scranreg is)then once the prompt says your in the right directory type scanreg.

You could also just press F8 just after computer has finished with the first page it shows when loading and go to safe mode menu.
choose safe mode.
once in safe mode, place win 98 disk in drive and load any files which are missing or save out your files or re-install windows over and saving your data.


Hope some of this helps you
All the best
Janet
www.boatstogo.co.uk

[StuW]

I don't know if this applies, but I recently had problems with my Internet Options locking up, etc.. and was advised to dowload some free "SpyBot" and "AdAware" software. After running these they found dozens of registry entries that did not belong. After deleting the entries my computer ran great again. This may be related to your problem. Late at night, I usually surf around and then run those programs. Every time I open a different site, something is usually entered in my registry. It's not just the cookies that are problematical.

I hope this helps.

[bondei]

The reason you get this error is that they have been deleted from your harddrive, and you now need to copy them from your Rescue disk to you harddrive.

Here you should use the copy function, but i am sorry i do not remember the exact way to write the command because the normal copy will not bring over the files you need.
I am but i do not have my notes here, as it is long time since i had that problem i do not remember the copy code.
I will try to find out for tomorrow Tuesday and post the exact solution.

The thing that happend can be caused by a virus, or an error on the harddrive.

I do not understand though why the support sections could not help with this they should be certified A+ supporters.

[bondei]

Hi Again

You should use your bootdisk, or rescue disk. Whatever you would call it. If you do not have one you can download from here with a friends help:
http://www.bootdisk.info/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=13

The you go to your computer put the floppy in, and go to the A: Drive in the promt, then you press <enter>
write thereafter: copy *.* C:\
and press <ENTER>

This should help as it would copy all files including systems files over in the boot sector.
The files you are missing are the ones for startup, and more.

Sincerely

Mads Jensen

[EJRS.COM]

Stu, I am one of the 11 or so authorized Spybot download partners worldwide. This prob can't be fixed with Spybot. Nonetheless Spybot is the best software in the world for fixing spyware related issues. http://ejrs.com/spybot

Bondei if you can find teh answer I reckon VFaulkner and my friend will be really grateful to ya.

[edhan]

Hi vfaulkner

If it is not due to virus, you can restore your system by running setup from Windows 98. Normally what I do is having the Windows 98 in my Drive C i.e. win98 directory in harddisk copied from the Windows 98 CD. So, having the win98 files in your Drive C, simply cd win98 at C prompt. At C:\win98>
you can type setup to run the Windows 98 setup and going through the setup will not destroy your existing files but will replace those that were missing. I did that many times to restore when the Windows 98 gets corrupted or situation like yours.

Hope this helps!

Regards
Edward Han

[xmx]

I read an article yesterday, here is the link

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/36413.html

I can't help more, I use linux...

[MioTEK]

Here are a couple of tidbits:

(1) If your FAT or FAT32 file system has been compromised, there could be unrepairable problems, and you're S.O.L.

(2) If that "link to open IE 5.5" was malicious, and you hadn't any viral protection, you may have become compromised (there are down-and-dirty DELETE *.* viruses specific to unguarded Win9x machines).

(3) If/when you get your machine back, upgrade to IE 6.x [latest] and go to Windows Update (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) and scan & update everything possible (Win9x has some very exploitable holes, that, left unattended, will basically flag hakzors "hey, hey you hAkZoR, I'm over here, come and exploit all of my open ports plz").

(4) If you can get to your "C:\" prompt, [omit the double quote marks] try these:
..(A) Navigate to "C:\Windows\System\"
..(B) type "regsvr32.exe /i shdocvw.dll", then press enter
..(C) type "regsvr32 /i shell32.dll", then press enter
..(D) type "regsvr32.exe /i shdoc401.dll", then press enter
..(E) type "regsvr32 /i mshtml.dll", then press enter
and finally ...
..(F) type "rundll setupx.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 c:\windows\inf\shell.inf", then press enter

[colr]

You have almost certaily been hit by Bagel Q. This virus does not require you to download or open any attachment, instead automatically downloading and running itself w/o you even knowing.

If this is the case, then you have learned a valuable lesson the hard way - always keep up to date with windows patches (a patch is available that would have stopped this from happening, and was infact released last year).

Do you have a partitioned hard drive? If not, on recovery try partitioning your hard drive. That way, if anything like this shold happen again you should have all data stored on a seperate partition to the OS, and that can be easily recovered.

C.

[TrafficProducer]

In windows XP select: -

Start – All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Restore

This will allow you to Turn the clock back to a previous working version.

Hope this help you Good luck

[vfaulkner]

Thanks for all the input!!
We did a variation of flood6's advise and plugged into another computer. (and Yes, I am looking into another OS ;-) )
Turns out, everything in the c:\windows had been deleted. (virus or not, who knows, since I had just updated my DAT.)
Everything else was still there.

Our Solution:
We added a second larger HD and reinstalled the OS. I am in the process of reinstalling and/or upgrading my programs to the new drive. I still have access to my older files and preferences while being very careful not to copy any files that may be corrupted to the new.

:-)

At the same time this was happening on my desktop machine, I bought a laptop so work can continue...