Registry problem... (PC newbie problem)

Factual Questions
1

hello
my first topic here
yay
anyways

ive been having these nasty registry problems , they started last week

i would turn on the pc , and most of the times i would get a “Windows has encountered an error trying to access the registry , press ok to restart and fix it”

k so i fix the problem , fine.

but…i turn it on the next day and the same thing!

this time after windows fixed the problem , i was browsing on the net downloading some songs , i goto the Run bar in the start menu and type scanregw

and it gives me that registry error again…

also i tried to install a game , after i finished the installation , i typed out that command and i got the error

after i restart the PC , i have to install the game again because it wasnt saved in the registry
i did a virus scan and a trojan cleaner with maybe 4 programs , and 2 good online ones , i did a thorough scan disk and a defrag on all drives

ive also noticed it happens maybe after half an hour of surfing (or doing anything) , it seems to be like a set period , if i do a scanregw , no problems , but after a while , ill get the error , if i restart the pc after that half an hour , i get the error

(im not sure after how long this happens , rough estimate)

why is this happening? WAHHHHHHHHHHH

i use win98 , second edition me thinks

and a couple of days before that i had an Install Shield Error , but it disappeared after a restart , could that have done anything?

i cant install anything if that registry thingie is going to keep getting errors!

if this isnt clear , its because im a pc newb , but ill try to make things as clear as possible

help!!!

PS i never edited or touched the registry , or used a registry cleaner before

2

oh and i also had a CMOS error once when i started the pc , it told me to restart the pc , i did and it was gone but my the time on my pc got messed up

3

My guess is that if there is a problem in the Registry, it exists in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE section.

I don’t have any great advice, but here’s a couple things you can try before someone else comes along with better advice:

Here is some information on how to use scanregw properly…it sounds like you already know what you’re doing with that program, but you might skim through the information anyway.

Also, you could try running RegClean (download it here). If there are any duplicate entries in your Registry that are causing the problem, this program will clean it up. It will also create an “Undo” file, which you can run if for some reason the program makes things worse.

4

Peruse this MS Knowledge Base article and try the suggestions there. It mentions one reason why you will get this message every time you start Windows; that the registry loaded in memory has become corrupt due to a defective memory chip. The other reason could be that when your computer restarts and loads the backup copy of your registry (from the previous day) that that copy is also corrupt.

Try these out and if it continues to crop up, post back here and I can give you a rather long and involved process of how to rebuild your Win98 registry sans backup.

5

FWIW I had a motherboard go bad and before it finally crapped out I experienced several errors similar to the ones you are getting now. I eneded up with several files being corrupted and I was never able to recover them. Just to be safe do a backup of critical files now.

6

Could also be a HD going bad. Did you do a surface scan?

If you get a “good” registry, then back that one up, then back it up again. You have to use a command line switchh “/backup” since it won’t do it automatically if it’s already made a (bad) backup that day.