posted on July 12, 2001 11:06:22 AM new
I am writing on behalf of a friend. He installed some sort of new program into his computer to view pictures. When he turned off the computer and then turned it on the next day, it locked up at the Windows 98 screen and won't respond. I know how to open in safe mode, but what in the world do I do from there?! Thanks for any help!
K.
posted on July 12, 2001 12:25:54 PM new
Are you saying that each time your friend tries to turn his computer on, it locks up, but will go into safe mode?
posted on July 12, 2001 01:02:20 PM new
Yes, it locks and freezes on the Windows 98 screen and will go no further. I haven't actually tried safe mode (I'm going to try to fix it tomorrow), but I assume that it will go into safe mode. Any ideas on what to do? Thanks!
posted on July 12, 2001 06:06:56 PM new
Yah. Boot up into Safe Mode, which starts Windows with the absolute minimum drivers and programs. If the program does not have an uninstall and did not come on a CD disk that has an uninstall feature on it, then you'll need to manually uninstall it. Go to your Start menu/Settings and select Control Panel. In Control Panel, select Add/Remove Programs icon. Then, scroll down the selections until you find the offending program, then click it to select it and then click Add/Remove button and follow the instructions.
posted on July 13, 2001 09:02:35 PM new
Well, I checked out the computer and it won't even open into safe mode. When I tell it to open into safe mode, then it just continues to lock up on the Windows 98 screen. You can see by the light on the computer that is working, but it never moves beyond that screen. Should I try to boot from the Windows 98 disc? If you can't open in safe mode, what in the world can you do!? Thanks for the advice!
K.
posted on July 14, 2001 10:53:32 AM new
Hi again keciaarm! Next time you boot up, just before it starts to load, press F5 repeatedly, until you get the boot up menu. You can try to get into Safe Mode from there. If that doesn't work, shut down and do the same F5 thing and you'll see something that's called step-by-step confirmation. Press that and go through the complete menu pressing "NO" to every question asked except the very last one. This will say something like 'load Windows'.....press "YES" to this one and see if it will load.
posted on July 14, 2001 11:32:51 AM new
That would be helpful. I'd try the boot-by-cdrom option first. Get into Windows anyway that you can.
Booting step-by-step is ok. Basically, it's trying to load drivers in one at a time from the config.sys and autoexec.bat files. But if it locks up after the last questiojn, the only way you'd probably be able to fix the problem is to have some knowlege of DOS or attempt to re-install Windows.
If you go the DOS way, the problem is likely that when the program was installed, it attempted to write some values to the .ini files in your c:\windows directory. Each of these windows system .ini files usually has a back-up copy there with a .bak extention. You could try to make another copy of the existing win.ini and sys.ini files, then make the back-up files the system files. Or, if you use the EDIT <filename> command, you can take a look through those two files for any entries with the program's name on it and delete the info it wrote to it. If that doesn't do it, the next option is trying to repair Windows.
Using the floppy disks or cdrom to boot up into DOS, from the DOS prompt, switch to the drive letter of the cdrom player. With the Windows cdrom in the player, type SETUP.
When Widows tries to reinstall further into the insallation procedure, it will recognise the fact that there is a previous installation. If i recall rightly, it will give you a choice to repair the system or to do a completely new install. If you do a brand-new install, you'll need 208Mbytes of room on your hard drive for it and once installed, almost every program installed on the computer will have to be reinstalled all over again. That's because a complete installaton re-writes the registry files and the old one is kaput.
posted on July 23, 2001 09:12:55 AM new
Here is where we stand on this computer mess....
I tried to boot off the windows 98 disc and it wouldn't let me. I also tried to do the system configuration and answer no to all the questions and try to load windows that way. I got a message that says "HIMEM.SYS is missing. Make sure file is in windows directory." I have no idea what to do now. Any ideas? Should I try to boot from a windows 98 boot disc on a floppy - it seems to try to read the floppy drive when I ask it to. Should I just trash it or what? Thanks for all the help!? K.
posted on July 23, 2001 09:44:46 AM new
You would never need to trash the whole thing. You can do a format from the C prompt and reload everything on the whole drive but that might not even be needed if you can get someone a little more ecperienced to restore the missing file from the CD or you can have a friend copy it of his windows files if it will fit on a floppy.
If you reformat to a clean drive watch out - I did that and could not reinstall and it took me awhile to find out my bios has an anti-virus that stalled the install program.
