Trying to help a friend

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

a friend of mine asked if i could help....now i'm asking you guys..

her pc is giving the blue screen of death...the only way she can boot is by going into safe mode, and this only works sometimes.

the only thing i know about her pc is that it is about 4 yrs old and she is running windows 98 2nd ed.

I told her to try using the win98 disk to 'repair' windows.

not sure if this worked yet, but any other ideas in case repairing windows doesn't work?

[LA_MERC_goose]

Format C:\
Install new OS?
Just an idea.

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

i told her that, but she's afraid to try a new OS. besides, she has a bunch of pics of her kids that she would like to get off of her h/d.

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

When did this start happening? Did it start after she loaded a program or just randomly?

Sounds like something on startup, maybe a vxd / driver file from something recently loaded / updated

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

she loaded quicken about a week ago.

[LA_MERC_goose]

I would try going into Safe Mode and remove Quicken. Restart it and try again.

If it comes down to it, she can go into safe mode and save all of the files she really has to have. She's going to want to try a new OS before too much longer mainly because Microgoobers .. I mean Microsoft is dropping th 98 support before long.

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

Sabre, got into safe mode with command prompt only. It will load into a dos screen and at the command prompt type

scanreg /restore

It will bring up a beta version of the Windows system restore screen through dos. Choose a date thats before the time she installed quicken and restore.


Microsoft is officially ending support for Windows 98 on January 16th

[CajunTech]

If Scanreg /restore doesn't work and seh really wants to get the pictures off then she can reinstall Windows 98 on top of itself. You shouldn't lose any data (some of your programs won't work), but at least she'd have the machine up and running again where she could burn CDs, save to floppies, etc..


I usually yank the hard drive out, set it up as a slave on my PC, make a directory of the persons name, and copy the whole thing to the directory. Burn thier old stuff to a DVD, reinstall thier PC, copy my documents and a few other folders to thier freshly installed PCs from the DVD/CD, and hand them the PC and DVD in case I missed anything. I started doing this after people would say "Oh, I don't need anything off of it" and then a couple weeks later they start asking me for pics, quicken, or old taxcut backups.

[CajunTech]

Another thing would be go in through safe mode.

Start, Run, MSCONFIG

Goto the startup tab and uncheck all the nonnecessary junk that will probably be there. If you still geta blue screen you can go into safemode again and start uninstalling unnecessary programs one by one in case it is a program causing the problem during startup.

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

You could also try Win98 safe restore -

boot into dos, w/ a win98 cd in the drive - cd to tools, then sysrec, then type pcrestor

it's usually the LAST thing i try on a 98 box, but works really well sometimes...IF it's not another piece of software, and simply the OS that's hosed.

Everybody gave you good suggestions, so try all of those FIRST! Mines a last ditch before formating kinda thing...

[LA_MERC_M@lACHi]

Just an FYI, Windows 98 will to be supported until June 30, 2006.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/01/13/windows.support.ap/index.html

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

thanks alot guys, i will try and see what happens...i'll let you know how it goes!

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

Throw it out the window!!!!

er I mean go with these guys suggestions...


;)

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

Originally posted by M@lACHi
Just an FYI, Windows 98 will to be supported until June 30, 2006.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/01/13/windows.support.ap/index.html


ONLY paid incident support is available through Jun 30,2006. Extended hotfix support ended on Jun 30, 2003. Online self-help support will continue to be available until at least Jun 30, 2007.

All free phone support ends January 16th, 2004 and as you can read from above, Microsoft will not be releasing any more bug fixes or patches for Windows 98.

[LA_MERC_LaTech]

I've already burned all of Win98 updates to a CD...planning ahead.

[CajunTech]

I think the updates will still be available, but no new ones will be offered.

I could be wrong...

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

well, we were all wrong....she had a bad RAM chip....lol

[LA_MERC_goose]

WELL, THAT SUX!

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

We were only giving educated guesses on what the problem "may" have been. Its very hard to trouble shoot an issues based on what someone else perceives to be happening verses the unlying issue

Good job on finding the issue though

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

lol, I know Toby...and thanks. After i tried some of the stuff you guys were talking about...and nothing changed, i figured i'd just start pulling stuff out one at a time.