# Win98 "A device attached to the system is not functioning" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win98-a-device-attached-to-the-system-is-not-functioning/215978 "2003-11-29T22:57:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win98-a-device-attached-to-the-system-is-not-functioning/215978/1 "2003-11-29T22:57:04Z")
I gave my old computer to my folks. It is a Compac running Win98. My sister thought that she would “clean up” the disk and deleted many things. One of them was the old CardFile program. I tried to re-install it, but I get the message “A device attached to the system is not functioning.” Today I tried to upgrade Mom’s AOL. I get the same message. The CD rom drive runs fine and I can copy files from it. In fact, I copied the entire CD to the hard drive - and I still get the message when I try to run setup. I also tried to run Win98 setup to see if there was a repair option. I did a google for it and got a lot of hits, but none of them seemed to be the problem. One of the things I was adviced to do was to rename MFC42.DLL and reboot. This did not work. Something else I tried was to run in MS DOS mode and do a SCANDISK. SCANDISK did not run. I assume that there is a missing DLL, but cannot figure out which one. Any advice out there dopers? ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win98-a-device-attached-to-the-system-is-not-functioning/215978/2 "2003-11-29T23:00:56Z")
P.S. I ran the control panel, looked at the system properties and the device manager and it does not show any devices having a conflict or running poorly. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win98-a-device-attached-to-the-system-is-not-functioning/215978/3 "2003-11-29T23:16:32Z")
If your sister nuked a lot of binaries that the system is still looking for in some form or fashion, you really need to save critcial data, format the disk and re-install the OS. The message you cite often occurs with scenarios involving missing or damaged binaries. It could be any number of missing files causing the error message. See [A device attached to the system is not functioning](http://lists.over.net/pipermail/mod_gzip/2001-February/003847.html) ---
**Author:** ![Toddly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Toddly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toddly)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win98-a-device-attached-to-the-system-is-not-functioning/215978/4 "2003-11-29T23:41:42Z")
I will take a different approach and suggest that you give System File Checker a try. Win 98 came with this nice little utility and I used a couple of times to repair some corrupted system files when I used 98.Check this [page](http://www.techadvice.com/w98/M/mfc42_dll.htm) about the renamed dll file and SFC and how to use it. Read it carefully before running. Good Luck and post back on how it goes. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/win98-a-device-attached-to-the-system-is-not-functioning/215978/5 "2003-11-30T13:13:45Z")
An excellent tip Toddly. SFC found and replaced one dll. It didn’t help in this instance, but it is a great tip to know. Thanks.