Re: OT: Windows question
- From: Hardtime <hardtime11@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:17:28 -0400
On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 02:45:43 -0000, Zenin <zenin@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tom Greening <tgreening@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've got an older pc that has win 98 on it and it won't boot. It gets to
the boot screen and just goes on and on forever. I know the fat table is
corrupted, along with himem.sys and emm386.exe. My question is there any
way to repair the fat table, load up a new copy of the mentioned files,
and be good to go without having to do a reinstall of win98?
The most straightforward option would be to take out the hard drive and
install it on a working computer as a 2nd drive. Boot that computer and
run scan disk (or if you've got something better like Norton Utilities,
fix it with that). While you're there copy over the mentioned files.
Then put the drive back in the original machine and cross your fingers.
Win 98 is pretty piss-poor OS, honestly. It was always far easier to
keep it running with a 2nd computer available to do swaps like this.
-Zenin
Just as a double check can you boot it up in "Safe Mode"? If you can
then it is not that messed up and you can fix it without another
machine and some simple fix-it utilities. Then again you could have
something else going on like that old drive failing as the Windows 98
error reporting is flawed at best.
With the himem.sys and emm386.exe errors you have some problems. The
easy way around it is to upgrade if possible. If you have Windows 98
you can always go to a newer version of Windows 98 via 98 A, B, C, D
or Second Edition. Believe it or not there are several editions but
you need to run it as an upgrade over the top and not a clean install.
You can even Upgrade to Windows Millennium if you want. Really if the
computer is that old it might be time to retire that word processor.
I list the above only because the best way to fix the himem.sys and
emm386.exe is through the use of diskettes and DOS. If you are not
that familiar with DOS you could make some mistakes.
A couple of months ago I took a bunch of old(er) machines to the dump
for incineration because they were so far outdated it was not worth
the upgrade costs. One was a Packard Bell another was an old
Tandy/Radio Shack (with a 20mb hard drive that still worked) and a few
others.
Your drive could have just enough life on it to slave onto another
system and copy what you want off of it and then throw it. I have
taken some apart and made clocks and paper weights.
For $309 you could get something that would certainly beat what you
have:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/results.aspx/desktops?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&~ck=anav&a=10085~0~52741&navla=10085~0~52741
or you can go to a computer show and buy something the way you want:
http://www.marketproshows.com/computershows/showschedule.php
(¯`·._Hardtime_.·´¯)
http://geocities.com/arcticjohn88/arcticjohn88
.
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