Major problem booting up

[baja_01]

Hellp, my mom's computer is having a major issue right now. It starts up as normal and begins to load window for a sec, then turns back into the black screen with all the begining to boot up stuff and days this--

Verifying DMI Pool Data........

The following file is missing or corrupted: C;\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
There is and error in your CONFIG.SYS file line 1

The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE
There is an error in your CONFIG.SYS file on line 2

The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS

The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\WINDOWS\DBLUFF.SYS

The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
Cannot find WIN.COM, unable to continue loading windows


Thats what its giving me. This computer was working perfectly two hours ago and now is all screwed up. It is our main computer and has un-backed up very important info on it.

Any help you can give me would be great!

Thanks.

[andyms18a]

do you have a boot flopy disk from the same version of windows if not get one from http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
boot the computer with it and at the c: type scandisk and hit enter affter it finishes repair any errors it tels you about then type fdisk/mbr and hit enter then type system c and hit enter

[baja_01]

Thanks alot!

So I won't lose any info this way?

Thanks again!

[andyms18a]

your data will be safe all so the cable that connects the hard drive to the mother board may be faulty its a good idea to replace it when you get this type of error and last scan the hard drive with a anti virus checker you can download f prot av for dos and run it on a floppy disk
http://www.f-prot.com/download/index.html

[baja_01]

Ok, two problems-

1. I'm not sure on the version of Win 98 to get, any way I could tell?(My aunt put the computer together and wont be home for a few hours, but she should know.)

2. F-Pro doesn't fit on a floppy. What should I do?

Thanks so much for your help!

[andyms18a]

win 98 oem boot disk will be ok
and the fprot you nead is hear
http://www.f-prot.com/download/download_fpdos.html
its a zip file unzip it and run the setup it will ask for 1 or 2 floppy disks when it has finished take it to the bad computer and boot from it and follow the on screan instructions

[holocube]

hi,

To determine whether you are running win98FE or SE, can be determined by reading under the system information section of system properties. (This can be achieved by right clicking on my computer, and clicking properties). In the window that appears, read under 'system: ', and it will say 'Microsoft Windows 98', and if it is SE then it will say 'Second Edition' underneath. If not, then you have FE.
I have checked the disk images on the site, and both of the win98 ones are less than 900kb. This should fit on a normal 1.44mb floppy.
It would be an enormously rare and amazing case if you IDE cable were causing the problem, there should be no need to change it due to a problem such as this.

[baja_01]

Ok, I got the boot disk, found out it is SE. I am going to use the ome version I guess.

For f-prot, I am geting really confused. I download it to my desktop and jdouble click on the zip file and it just opens up a thing with 23 different files. I am not sure how to get it onto a floppy from there.

Sorry for the trouble.

[Redo40]

How to set up F-Prot on floppies

[andyms18a]

Originally posted by holocube hi, It would be an enormously rare and amazing case if you IDE cable were causing the problem, there should be no need to change it due to a problem such as this.

i have had about 15 computers over 2003 with dud IDE cables
which cause this type of problem it sounds a lot but we repair about 35 computers a week so it is rare but it dose happen. and most computer shops will sell IDE cables for 2 quid so its not an expensive item to replace

[baja_01]

Ok nothing has changed!

I finally got the boot disk to copy with out geting any errors. It took me about 9-10 tires to do that.

I put the floppy in the drive and it goes through its start up and instead of openning Windows it gost to a screen that says:

1. Start with CD-ROM support
2. Start without CD-ROM support
3. View help file

I choose opption 1 and it goes through a little thing and comes to:

A:\

I put in C:\ to get to that and run scan disk on that. It took over 12 hours to get through it all and it found a lot of errors and fixed them all.

I then went and did the same thing for the other partions (C:\ - F:\).

Then after I get that done I go through and type in:

fdisk/mbr

I do that for all the partions.

I restarted it and it does the same error thing.

There are two hard drives in it and they are on a controller. I do not know what they are setup on but I can find out.

I have no clue what to do now and can really use some help

Mabye the cable does need replaced?

Thanks!

[andyms18a]

if scandisk has found a lot of errors then its eather a cabble or the hard drive has died download the hard drive diag software from your hard drive manufactures web site and run it to test the drive

[Redo40]

You might also want to Slave the hard drive to another computer and see if you can get your important files off.

[baja_01]

Well, got all the needed files saved to this com. I slaved on drive at a time to this one and got all the stuff of really easy.

I think the hard drive is going out. I have not tested it yet, but when this first started it made of LOUD cliking sonund. I sut it down and it stoped and didn't do it again. Then the last time I started it, it made the sound again. I was able to solve it the same way.

The new plan it to get two new drives and set them up in RAID 1. I think the controller card that is in the computer can do that. Migh get Win XP also.

Can't thank you guys enough for the help! That thing would most likely be sitting in the "to fix" bench at our local computer repair place right now.

[holocube]

Yeah, that sound is your hdd failing. Best not to start it again as when it goes it could surge other components.