My father somehow managed to crash his whole system after downloading some Win98 updates from AOL. Initially he said that he got just his background screen on startup, no icons, but that AOL came up and he could run that. So what did he do? Downloaded something else and now he gets only the background, no icons, no AOL. He tried two different startup/ resuce disks and said that neither did anything. It sounds as though the 'puter didn’t read the drive at all because he ended up back at the background screen. I’m trying to figure this out over the phone of course which is relatively hopeless. (To be fair to Dad, he has always been an intelligent man, a retired engineer, but for some reason he is lost in the world of computers.) Anyway, he has a 3 year old PC, don’t remember the specifics, but decent for the time and he’s running Win98B, I believe. HIS solution? He ordered a new Dell. He is giving the crashed one to me in hopes that I can fix it up so that I can use it (I don’t think three pc’s is excessive, I have kids, you know) and he also is hoping that I can recover his files. Anyone have a similar experience after downloading from AOL? I’m by no means an expert. Could it be a virus? If I have to reformat the drive, is that overwhelmingly difficult? I can figure out software issues fairly well if given the info, but I have no experience with this. Any suggestions? Thanks
Punt.
It could very well be a virus. Did he get the files from AOL directly, or some no-name mirror? You could try booting in “safe mode” and poking around with the techs to see if you can flush AOL. Booting to DOS and using a ghosting utility to preserve the harddrive is also a possibility-- but you should con a computer savvy friend into helping if you aren’t a comand line friendly user.
Formatting is easy and fun, but you can kiss those files goodbye! (I do it about every 3 to 4 months just to beat windows into submission)
Thanks p@cific@812 . I’m not sure how the AOL downloads work. I know he uses them frequently and doesn’t have his virus can up-to-date…I’m going to have to go take a look myself to get more info. I told him already that his files are gone if I have to reformat but I said I’d use it as a last resort. I swear he did this on purpose so he could have an excuse to get a new computer. The last time he upgraded was because his monitor died. Yep, he needed a whole new computer cause the monitor died. He’s too funny. Thanks again
His virus s can, that is… I hate when that happens.
If it comes down to it you can connect the drive to another computer as a slave and recover the files. Since the disk format is probably FAT32 you will need to use windows 98 or higher(warning NT 4.0 won’t work). From the information you gave I don’t have a clue what he did but usually you can reload 98 without formating and not lose your programs or files. I would still recover the important files first.
I think with Win98 you can reboot in DOS only - he or you should try that, and see if you can find the files. It’ll dump you into the C: directory; type DIR and see if anything comes up. You can also run Norton programs through DOS or directly from the CD-ROM or floppy drives, assuming they’re also fine.
Forgive the tone of this message as I am typing it from the aspect of assuming you will do all that I suggest. (Sorry if that was boorish)
My advice is boot up in safe mode, when the computer first starts booting start tapping the F8 key (don’t do this too often or you’ll just lock up the keyboard till it catches up with itself). After windows boots into safe mode you have a few options. One run an updated virus scan.
None of the following changes to your computer will affect windows, all these will do is change what software loads when windows starts. If you have any questions or I need to clarify please let me know.
(These may be considedered advanced but it’s not hard) I would suggest running MSCONFIG from your run bar in the start button. Then go to setup, deselect anything you don’t recognize, leave systray, volume, anything that refers back to your anti-virus, and anything in which you recognize the program and still want it to load at the start of windows. Close msconfig, it will ask you to reboot say no.
Next go to c:\windows and open your win.ini file, if anything is in the run or load rows delete it, do not delete the run= or the load= lines just what is after the equal signs. Close win.ini and msconfig
Go to your c:\ (Made sure you have show hidden and show system files check in your view folder options) right click on autoexec.bat. It is fine for the autoexec to be empty in most instances. My advice for this one, if you are unsure post the autoexec.bat on the board somewhere and ask people if it looks suspicious. You can e-mail it to me if you like, it’s in my profile.
Then go to run in your start button again and type regedit, from there click on the plus button beside hkey_local_machine, click the plus button beside software, click the plus button beside Microsoft, click the plus button beside windows, go to run delete any values your don’t recognize (leave anything referring back to your anti virus). Go to run services and repeat. Close regedit and reboot.
Two minor corrections,
First right click on autoexec.bat and the click on edit.
Second, it should have read, go to the run folder, delete any values you don’t recognize (leave anything referring back to your anti virus). Go to run services and repeat. Close regedit and reboot.
Also making changes to values in regedit is something you do at your own risk. While I do affirm that removing anything out of your run and run services folder will not adversely affect windows I cannot guarantee this.
If you can get do a DOS prompt, you might try “scanreg /restore” at the c: prompt and take it back as far as you can. Fixes a lot of issues in 98 if you catch it soon enough.
Thanks all for your help. I really appreciate it. I’m heading down to Dad’s tomorrow and will be armed with all of your suggestions. There is another computer in the house there so I may be checking back or taking Clever Hans up on the email offer. If all else fails, I’ll follow imthjckaz’s suggestion.
Thanks again.
I will be available on aol messenger tomorrow as well and as I have nothing better to do feel free to im me, Srrojo1 is my aim handle.
I did it! Everything seems to be back in working order. It was a virus that had corrupted a system file. I ended up being able to restore the registry from the last working date and that did the trick. The first time I tried to do that it failed for some reason. Partially (probably mostly) because I had gone down to my father’s to try to fix it there and had to bring my 9 yr.old and 16 month old with me to a non-baby-proofed environment. My wild boy is more than most can handle, so I ended up not being able to concentrate at all. But I brought the pc home and once I could work on it without (too many) interruptions I eventually got it. I immediately threw in a brand new copy of McAfee that my father had bought and never installed and it found the corrupt file. In the meantime, I had edited the config.sys file through DOS without really knowing what I was doing (at that point I figured I couldn’t make it worse…) which didn’t help the situation at all but so far it looks like I didn’t screw anything up either.
Poor Clever_Hans had very nicely offered his help, so I got him on AIM while at my father’s, then my kids started acting up and I ended up leaving him hanging there. Sorry about that! I did email an apology so I hope you got that.
Thanks again for everyone’s help. You really made me look like I knew what I was doing…not an easy task!