Yay! It got opened. Here's my computer problem...

[anhedonia]

Firstly, yay!!! It got opened :). Cool.

***

Okay, here's my computer problem. I'm running Windows 98. It seems that every time I start up my computer; when it's finished loading Windows, it says it needs to restart and restore the system registery or something. Then when I press [OK]; it restarts, goes to a blue screen and says it's backing up system files. Then once it's finished that, it says it has to restart again! :mad:

This started happening quite a few months ago; then it stopped; but about a week or so ago it started happening again. I'm wondering if anybody else is having this problem; or has a solution?

The whole thing takes about 10 minutes! It's so annoying. Another thing that happens is any recently saved or accessed files no longer appear in the Start > Documents list, and History files get wiped.

[coldturkey]

I think your computer needs a nice lil reformat, or try installing windows over windows.

:heart:

[anhedonia]

Oh, crap, really? I don't want to format! :cry2: I'll lose so much stuff... The CD burner is on the other computer [not mine] so I can't back it up that way... :(

And I just know if I try formatting or reinstalling windows I'll stuff it up! :eek:

Somebody told me that it's a time-related bug in Windows 98, and that it happens to them too... :confused2

**

Hehe, ty for the heart.

[Akalon]

Yep, I had that problem when I had Win98.. had to reformat :p

[anhedonia]

Damn! So I guess it hasn't happened again since you formatted? I really don't wanna format! *sulks*

[Akalon]

Well no, it didn't happen again.. but I installed XP shortly after. ;)

[anhedonia]

*shudder*

I hear XP is highly evil and very hackable..

I guess maybe I should contact Microsoft and ask them...Kind of avoiding doing that, though. :nervous:

[Akalon]

Originally posted by +chips
*shudder*
I hear XP is highly evil and very hackable..


If you don't want to play games its fine... probably hackable though, just get a firewall I suppose.

[Jan]

Originally posted by +chips
And I just know if I try formatting or reinstalling windows I'll stuff it up! :eek:

+chips, what is the point of asking for advice if you are too scared to try it? I recall having a conversation with you on MSN a couple of weeks ago regarding this and you weren't prepared even to try my advice.

Reinstalling windows is very easy, even Blank couldn't stuff it up :p

[Moonman]

about the cd burner being in the other computer, with windows 98 it isnt that hard to open up your comp and do a quick swap.

[anhedonia]

Originally posted by Jan
Reinstalling windows is very easy, even Blank couldn't stuff it up :p

ROTFLMAO!

But seriously! I stuff everything up! Even when I do something like delete Quicktime, you know what happened? My network connection totally died! It's jinxed, I'm telling you!

<<edit>>

How easy is to to reinstall? :confused2

[_Street_Fighter]

ummmmmm... u got win98 or win98SE?

go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and update ur comp with the latest patches and stuff... i dont know if u did that all ready...

<ADD>
also try here: http://search.support.microsoft.com/search/nlsearch.aspx?Catalog=LCID%3d1033%26CDID%3dEN-US-KB%26PRODLISTSRC%3dON&Product=w98&Query=start%2520up&Queryc=start+up&REF=false&srchstep=0&KeywordType=ALL&Titles=false&numDays=&maxResults=25

and here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;en-us;w98
</ADD>

- SF

[is0lized]

do you have a partition? i have a partition on my hard drive so if i have to reformat all i lose is the program files, and i have the cd for em or i have the files on my partition OR know where to get them


life without a partition sucks... :)

[guitarnerd]

What were you doing with quicktime in the first place? lol

Ok anyway, it is a problem in your registry so I would say the only way to solve the problem is to re install windows. Why don't you upgrade to win2k it would fix any problems in the registry and you would have a much more stable system. What file format is your computer, if you have certain software installed on fat32 it will cause errors. I know new adobe software for some reason tends to crash very easily on fat32. Also check for bad sectors on your hard drive.
If your drive is partitioned? I have a bunch of reccomendations that would probably work, but I don't want to type a bunch for nothing

[Giancarlo]

If I were in your position I would ditch Win98, get Win2k and get the more stable NTFS file system. Hey, all of my games work.

Reinstall windows, Chips for some more useful advice.

[ducktape]

Originally posted by +chips
Oh, crap, really? I don't want to format! :cry2: I'll lose so much stuff... The CD burner is on the other computer [not mine] so I can't back it up that way... :(

And I just know if I try formatting or reinstalling windows I'll stuff it up! :eek:

Somebody told me that it's a time-related bug in Windows 98, and that it happens to them too... :confused2

**

Hehe, ty for the heart.

If ur puter has ethernet cards ur in luck if not spend the $10 each for 2 of then and some cat5 cable and transfer all the files from 1 puter to the other and then reformat and reinstall win 98. all you could try to repair the installation by running the win98 cd again just shut down and boot from the cd and it should overwrite all ur windows files and everything should be good to go. but i warn you to back up ur things it may not work write. if you build a small network total investment iss less than $30US

[byrdgirl13]

would defragging help?

[Robert]

Here is what we do when a customer needs us to reinstall Windows but doesn't want to lose any of his/her data.

We restart into MS-DOS and go to C:\windows\system and rename "win.com" to "win.bak".

We than proceed to reinstall Windows (without formating). This way, the all system files are restored, keeping the customers data. If that doesn't work,we than go ahead and back up their data and format.

If you do not rename win.com, than when you go to reinstall Windows over Windows, it will install windows to the c:\windows000 directory.

Sure can't hurt your system.

[invalid]

get partition magic, make a fat partition and put all your backup files in that format your old c: copy all the backup files back onto the c: delete the backup partition and give the space back to c:

[guitarnerd]

Originally posted by byrdgirl13
would defragging help?
No defragging just arranges files etc... It doesn't fix it if there are problems.

I think robert has the best Idea yet. I have never personally had luck with repairing or reintsalling. But I have two hard drives in my computer a 20gig just for back up incase my computer does crash and a 40gig partitioned into 5gigs STRICTLY for the operating system absolutly nothing else and the 35gigs is for software and to record (My computer is mainly used for recording bands) So I reccomend you partition it will save you lots of trouble, the only bad side to it is if you do have to reformat your OS side, you will have to reinstall all the programs because they are not entered into the registry

[Robert]

Not to mention that if you do a clean format and installation of Windows, you will need to reinstall some drivers. Such as video and sound. Modem is another driver you would need to reinstall. Make sure you have a copy of those drivers already. You can always goto www.driversguide.com to obtain those drivers.

[no-one]

I too have encountered this and in one instance it was bad sectors, the other faulty IDE port.
I recommend booting to DOS (F8 or Ctrl) and doing thorough scandisk first af all.