Help!!!

[Yankee fan]

Help is needed badly ---- My son was trying to open a WORD document that he created and put on a floppy disk. It kept telling him to make sure the item he was trying to open ended in ".doc". Well, it did, and so after trying several times, I thought maybe a "restart" was in order, so we did that, and ever since then, we have not been able to start Windows (98, 2nd edition). It tries to boot up, and after the "98 screen", I get a window that tells me it will start in safe mode (in 30 seconds) because of a problem that windows did not load properely. I can also choose "Normal", Command prompt, etc. I think it is the same screen you get if you hit "F8" during startup.

Anyway. I let it go to Safe Mode, but it still doesn't go to Windows. It says, Unable to access Drive C. Retry, Ignore, Abort, Fail? So, I try again, but choose some other options, like command prompty, but end up at the same screen --- "Unable to access Drive C...."

When I chose the option of verifying each action of Startup, I thought it was going to work, but then I got a message that included something about "Windows protection fault error". Unable to access drive, etc.......

Any ideas on something to try to be able to open Windows again, or does it sound like my computer may be dead???

I have a Gateway pentium II 300 mgh. Windows 98 second ed. is the OS, and it is on my C drive. I aslo have a D drive that I added several years ago (20 GB). The system has been working fine. I did have to replace the C drive when I upgraded to Windows 98 back in early '99, but no problems since.

Is there any hope???

Thanks.

[doctorgonzo]

Did you restart the PC when the floppy was in the drive? If so, you may have gotten a virus (it happened to me once). I would download the DOS version of F-PROT, an antivirus scanner, and stick it on a boot floppy. Boot up the PC from the boot floppy and do a virus scan.

[Yankee fan]

doctorgonzo --- you know, I believe the floppy was in there when I did the restart. Would it restart with a disk in the A drive? Also, found out that my son tried to open the word doc at school, too, on a school computer, and it wouldn't open there either --- same message.

Where would I find the DOS version of F-Prot to download?

Thanks...

[doctorgonzo]

If you restarted with the floppy in the drive, and the disk had a virus, the PC would try to boot from the floppy first, loading the virus. While it is not certain that you have a virus, it is possible.

You can get the DOS version of f-prot here: http://www.f-prot.com/download/getfpdosfree.html

[Hpro]

Even I agree completely with doctorgonzo - still I have you to check your hard drive first - use your WIn98 cDROM boot with it and there select the option boot with cdrom support - but do not choose to install windows.
Ending at the prompt either change to the CDROM ( type E:\ and press ENTER) , which will be drive E:\ in your case - and there type SCANDISK /ALL /SURFACE /AUTOFIX C: and press enter - let it do it's things and then restart without the CDROM -
You need to change the boot option in the bios to boot of the cdrom first..hope this helps..
Ther error message you get is the error message of a dying hard drive - and till now I don't know any Virus which would give a error message like that one..

Hpro

[Yankee fan]

Thanks to all for the help! I was able to run the virus check and had no infections, but I could not do anything else (what Hpro suggested). The CD woukld not start, even with that first in the Boot up process. I only had access to DOS. I was doing some more "desperation" research, and saw an article about doing Scanreg/restore from the command prompt. I had completely forgotten that scanreg runs at every start up. Well --- I did the scanreg/restore, and it worked just like it said it would. It brought up the last 5, I chose one, and BAM --- I was back into windows. I then was able to run Scandisk, it corrected several errors, and I am now back to normal.

Thanks for the help --- although it wasn't the exact answer, it got me on the right track, which is the main thing!

[Nuclear Krusader]

Hi there, Yankee fan,

What are those errors Scandisk corrected? If you have bad clusters then your HD could be going south.

What brand is this HD you have?

Also, should you ever have the need to boot from the CD, go into the BIOS and make sure the first boot device is the CD.