Zip drive dysfunction

General Questions
#1

Last night, I rebooted my system, and it failed to come up except in safe mode. Today I ran Norton Rescue Zip, and after running it a few times and correcting different things, the computer began to run normally again. Except that the Zip drive is not working. I keep getting a message saying “error loading powrprof.dll device attached to system not functioning”. I also get a message saying “the powrprof.dll file linked to missing export setupapi.dll:setupdienumdevice.info” I discovered my rescue disk generated a new setupapi.dll file, much smaller than the old one, and moved the old one to a backup folder in the windows area. It won’t let me replace the new file with the old one, so I don’t know if that would help me. I also downloaded all new zipdrivers for a SCSI zip from Iomega and installed them, but that made no appreciable difference. In the middle of all this installing and rebooting, one time the zip drive light flashed a few times, and for a brief moment I was able to access the drive, but when I went for a reboot, it was dead as a doornail again.

So now the whole platform’s getting unstable, and takes forever to launch, and crashes at the drop of a hat. Anybody got any suggestions? Yeah, I know, buy a Mac. But something that might hold me over until I get more funds for a new system?

Qadgop the Clueless

#2

I’ll assume you can’t replace the file because Windows says it is in use. Did you try booting into DOS and replacing the file from there? It shouldn’t be in use then, and so it should be no problem.

#3

QM, I want you to write this down so next time it happens you won’t have to go through that.

Boot to DOS, at the Dos prompt type: scanreg /restore

Select an earlier registry that works from the date of it, to restore & viola! it works again. You have to reinstall any programs that you did after the date of the registry you choose.

#4

smackfu, my 16 year old daughter has forbidden me from mucking around in the windows system files until she can get some time this weekend to work on it. We may try that then

Handy, thanks for the tip. I’ll consider trying it. But my old zip driver got deleted when I installed the new one after the crash. will that impact on the process? Anyway, if I shove the zip drive disk I want to use into the inert drive, then reboot with the zip disk in, and ignore error and illegal operation flags, and if I hold my mouth just right, the Zip disk now comes alive, and I can access it, and often operate for an hour or two, until the whole system becomes unstable, and I have to reboot again. Thank god my kid’s a geek, and so’s her boyfriend. Between the three of us we’ve gotten into and out of a lot of jams.

BTW, I’m a paleogeek! Learned Fortran in the early 70’s, and did all my programs on keypunch cards, then sent 'em to U of Chicago to run. Took a month to see if my tic-tac-toe program worked, and took all of my senior year in High School to try (and fail)to debug the damn thing. First went on the Arpanet in 1979. Unfortunately my tech skills have not kept pace

#5

QM, is that an external zip drive?

The next thing you have to do is run SFC, system file checker, assuming you have W98, use the start: RUN: SFC
You know just put SFC in the run box.

What operating system is this anyway?

#6

internal zip, w98