Windows 98 won't start

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Windows 98 won't start

March 04, 2006, 11:40:26 PM

Brother in law asked me for help on his PC. He has a Dell desktop and is running Windows 98 (I do not know what 98 version). He was burning music into a disk (Nero) and said that he hit the wrong key/screen and ended up with a black screen (MS Dos prompt). The PC starts in DOS and refuses to acknowledge any windows files/other commands from DOS. I did an item check start and it states that HIMEM is missing, etc, and I also believe the Config and Autoexec files are gone (he thinks his Hard drive is toast). I feel terrible for not making a start up disk for him when I had a chance before this happened. How can I get this PC to start Windows? I took my Millenium start disk to his PC, but it does not work. I am baffled how he did this. Any ideas---thanks?

boot disk

Reply #1 – March 05, 2006, 07:15:13 AM

Take a lokk at http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
It may do the trick.

Windows 98 won't start

Reply #2 – March 05, 2006, 10:46:35 AM

yeah. If you are simply worried about the data, reinstall windows over itself, assuming the hard drive is still good. Then you can get data and things of the like back. You will not be able to run most windows programs though. You will destroy the thingy,.... I forget what it is called, but the map of all the shortcuts and installed files and what not. You will be perfectly able to run windows and get most if not all the data back though.

Windows 98 won't start

Reply #3 – March 05, 2006, 01:16:05 PM

Since brother in law barely remembers his own name at 71, I have no disks to work with----so Bob Norway---you may be the savior in this case. I downloaded all 98 versions and will go see if these work. Will advise. Many thanks for super response time and the website. It snowed 3 inches here overnight and at least I have today to make this effort for him as with Monday comes worktime for me. He is pretty much housebound and relies on his computer for social contact, so I want to get this done today for him.

Windows 98 won't start

Reply #4 – March 05, 2006, 03:40:57 PM

I remembered,.... The dynamic link library. the *.dll files.

Windows 98 won't start

Reply #5 – March 07, 2006, 09:22:03 PM

Update

Another relative younger than I used the start up disk and started Windows. He also took the PC with him to do more diagnostic work on it. I wasn't there (Monday). ...Will know more this weekend maybe.

Windows 98 won't start

Reply #6 – March 08, 2006, 11:01:31 AM

actually haystack is slightly wrong on that one.

with windows 9x (95, 98, 98se and ME) you can install windows on top of itself and it doesn't remove the .dll's or regestry entries for programs. It is overrights files that it is putting in and recreates all of your windows files and windows regestry entries. It is a quick and dirty repair method I used alot with win98. it is recommended to then back up your data and reinstall fresh but it works pretty well to recover from hard fails like that.

Windows 98 won't start

Reply #7 – March 08, 2006, 12:20:06 PM

I like to boot into dos, delete the win.com file and install windows over top of the existing installation. Virtually everytime it keeps the settings and such intact.

Windows 98 won't start

Reply #8 – March 09, 2006, 05:25:12 PM

hmm, I did the same on my dads desktop and got alot of dll file errors. Then again the disk had more holes in it then anything.

I reformatted later and it worked fine though.

Windows 98 won't start

Reply #9 – March 10, 2006, 03:17:48 PM

yah. it isn't perfect, and a few programs that change the win dll's won't work right, but it is good enough to get data off a drive.