Dumb Comp owner needs Help!

[Mike Pennington]

I burned up the power supply last friday in my home computer. Comp under warranty, so I lucked out there. But they wanted to charge me $120 to reprogram the dang thing, well I made a back up start up disc back when I purchased my last anti virus program. Norton. So I thought I could handle rebooting the system. No such luck!

I am using Windows 98, and when I turn the comp on it tells me I am having a Windows registry error. I can start up in Safe Mode, but my E and D drives are not turned on, so that I can not reprogram Windows. Of coarse windows is on a disc, so with out the disc drives enabled I am stuck. I don't know if any of this makes sense to any of you fine people, but if it sounds familiar from any personal experience please sound off.

These comp Geeks I bought my computer from, have got me twice now on reprograming my computer, and I am some what suspicious if I have been set up. I don't mean to slander these guys, but they sold me a three year parts and labor warranty. Their part goes bad, but I got to pay to have my system rebooted due to their bad part. I am not sure if this business practice is par every where, so I am wondering if The Cabby is taking me the long way home?

[Derek]

Mike, you've left me a little confused here.

First, when replacing a power unit, a reinstallation of Windows is not necessary.

Now when you start your computer, are you doing it with the back up startup disk you spoke of? Or is this happening on any start?

Extraneous drives (those other than floppy and hard drive) will not show up as available in Safe Mode as they are driver driven and the floppy and hard drive are 'hard coded'.

[Joe(Cold Spring onHudson)]

:roll:

<=== Mac. 8)

Sorry

[tdrown]

I am having computer troubles myself. I am assuming you replaced the power supply or had them do it. As Derek pointed out, a new power supply shouldn't require a reinstall of Windows, or doing anything for that matter. As he also said in Windows' safe mode things such as CD-ROM's do not show up. Who are you getting your servace from? Is it an actual business? If you are booting into safe-mode or there are any other strange problems with your computer then it will need servacing for reinstalling. Ask your technition exactly what needs to be done, something a little more detailed than reprograming.

I am having some booting problems too with my unix computer, the video card does not seem to be initializing. Before I had this problem my computer was restarting every 10 minutes the night before this happened. I took out all the cards and unpluged all the drives and the same problem. It might not be the video card, I don't hear a beep from the internal speaker that is heard on most computers (I don't remember if this computer ever beeped on boot-up). The computer is less than a year old, and the video card is even newer (GeForce 4 MX440). It also functions as an alarm clock, it plays music in the morning, so I have been late for the past few days to things! Oh well! I'm going to try to fix it this evening.

[Frank Hagan]

Yeah, what Derek said! :wink:

The registry in Windows is a database with all of your settings and preferences. It sounds like an error in it is preventing you from starting up in normal mode.

You can step through the boot process by pressing F8 when your computer is booting up. You will get a menu like this:

Microsoft Windows 95/98 Startup Menu

1. Normal

2. Logged (\BOOTLOG.TXT)

3. Safe Mode

4. Step-by-step Confirmation

5. Command Prompt Only

6. Safe Mode Command Prompt Only

Enter a Choice: 4

Choose #4, and then be ready to write down exactly where you hang up. Sometimes in this mode, you'll get a better explanation of which registry setting is causing the problem. But you may still not be able to boot up. Let us know what it says (exactly ... you have to write it down!)

The registry is contained in two files, USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT. The system saves a copy each time you successfullly boot up. So, you may have a copy of the registry saved on disk from the last time you successfullly booted up to Windows 98. There's an article on this at http://www.infohq.com/Computer/help/windows-registry-restore.shtml, but it doesn't tell you where to find the files. I don't have Windows 98, and Microsoft keeps changing where things are stored. But I think they are kept in the C:/Windows/System directory.

Anyway, if you want to try this, hit F8 at the boot up, then select number 5 for "command prompt only". You should get a prompt like "C:\WINDOWS>" or "C:\>" At the command prompt, you have to press the ENTER key after typing a line, which I have represented with the <ENTER> text in the examples below.

Issue the command "CD .." <ENTER> (that's two of the period keys) repeatedly until you get to a plain "C:\>" prompt.

Now we need to find where the files are. Try the following to see if you find the files:

C:\> dir c:\windows\system\user.dat <ENTER> ...or....

C:\> dir c:\windows\user.dat <ENTER>

You should either get a directly listing of the file, or the message "File Not Found". When you find the file and get the directory listing of it, write down where it is located. I think its in the c:\windows\system directory (the first choice above).

Then enter the following commands, using the directory you found the files in above (I have it in "c:\windows\system\", by you may need to change that to "c:\windows\" if they are located there).

C:\> copy c:\windows\system\system.dat c:\windows\system\system.sav <ENTER>

C:\> copy c:\windows\system\user.dat c:\windows\system\user.sav <ENTER>

C:\> copy c:\windows\system\system.da0 c:\windows\system\system.dat <ENTER>

C:\> copy c:\windows\system\user.da0 c:\windows\system\user.dat <ENTER>

You should get the "1 file copied" message after each command if successful.

You are saving your original "system.dat" and "user.dat" files (which are corrupted) into "system.sav" and "user.sav" in the first two commands. So you can always tell a technician what you did if he needs to get at those two files. Then you are copying the system-made back ups last time you booted up normally over the corrupted copies. Sometimes this cures the problem. Turn off the computer with the big red power switch and then, after a few seconds, turn it back on and see what happens.

[Mike Pennington]

Okay,

Yep I think I got all that! I will copy before I go home, so I will have a hint when I actually start to figure the computer out. Two Geeks computers of Fairbanks assembled my computer 2 years ago, their warranty is for three years parts and labor, but tech support is not warrantied. Yes, the power supply, should not effect the resister, thats why I am suspicious. I will try some of the things you all have out lined for me this morning after work. One suggestion was to see if they changed the drive priorities on me, under the system boot up. Dang I know I am using the wrong words here. Kind of like the thingie on the watcha macallit, you know what I mean? Thanks Guys, I'll be in touch soon hopefully, three days off with out internet will be a drag, so I better figure this one out soon.

[Sailor3356]

Frank Hagan did a good job, so follow his instructions. The Norton should have copied you registry and following their reinstall should put you right back to the way it was when you backed it up. Once you get your computer back up you may want to back up the registry whenever you do any major installs. The power supply should have not changed your hard drives but if it was on when the power supply went it could have. Did they give you a reason for your power supply to fail. Do you have a UPS or surge suppresser on you system, and a good ground. This may keep it from happening again. Are your D: and E: drives physical drives or a logical drive. I would take it that your E: is you CDROM. Aren

[Mike Pennington]

Okay, I am back, traumatized, frazzled and ready to go back to working with wood. :roll: I don't know, the owner of Two Geeks, Randy, told me that yes when my power source went bad it could have done all kinds of damage, being I was using the computer when it happened. No explanation why, they did replace free of charge and yes my friends I do have a surge protector. Who knows, S--- Happens!

:2gunfire: I have been known to shoot alarm clocks, still to chicken and cheep to shoot this comp though!

I haven't checked to see if I can get e-mail yet. But I did have all my Word Perfect files backed up, and I am not crying about that!!! Could have been worse.

Thanks for all the help, suggestions and Humor, the most important for stress relief when the lakes are still froze. :wink:

Well I'll be back later, I still may have lost my digital photo files, I got to go find out.