Very Odd Problem

[Web Master]

first, I've seen this problem before just can't remeber the fix. It does a few things: You can't drag and drop icons, you can't paste to the drive and I can't install anything because it's acting like the drive is locked. I've seen this problem before so I know theres a fix. I ran scandisk, defrag, virus detection and disabled all config,autoexec, and startup progs. It's a Win95 machine.

[Wayward Clam]

Is the drive full?

[joelen]

are you getting an error message?

[Web Master]

Drive has over 1 GB left. I get no errors, I just can't Drag&Drop or Cut&Paste, if I copy a folder and try to Paste it, the Paste is greyed out.

[joelen]

Can you go into a simple progrma like notepad, create a file and save it?

MIGHT be setting in BIOS-- like hard drive set to READ ONLY.... don't know how well windows would actually boot though if that was the case-- just a thought...

[Wayward Clam]

Can you delete files and/or uninstall programs?

Is the paste option still greyed out if you drag and drop with the right mouse button?

[Archer]

Have you checked the drive properties to see if its write protected.

[Wayward Clam]

There's another thing to check--does the problem still exist in Safe Mode? If not, may be caused by a driver or program on your machine.

[Pyroate]

Did you run a thorough or standard scandisk?

[Web Master]

It happens in Safe Mode, I can delete stuff, but cannot Paste. I have fixed it before but it's tricky. If anyone has seen this before let me know. I have ran Thour. and Standard Scandisk passed both. No bad spots, the drive isn't "Write Protected" in the BIOS. Damn this is a pain.

[Wayward Clam]

Oog. That is a toughie. I hope you will be so kind as to post the solution here for our curiosity when you do find it again.

Is there any kind of drive overlay software installed?

Can you create and save files from the DOS prompt (reboot in DOS)? If so, proves its not a hardware issue, anyways...

[keystone]

In folder options - view - set it back to default settings. Hope this helps. I have seen this one too just don't remember what the fix was. Thanks Keystone

[tiffin_tom]

Did you by chance re-install Windows 95? I've seen this exact problem on computers that the user had updated Internet Explorer to 4 or above then reinstalled Windows 95 overtop of it.

The solution was to manually uninstall Internet Explorer 4 (and above) - even though Windows doesn't show that IE 4 is there now. Then re-install IE 4 or above.

Hope this helps.


BTW, you should be able to find a handy tool in the utilites section of Windrivers called IEraticator. Works good.

[DANIMAL]

Sounds like the drive is compressed I've seen this prob sometimes with a floppy that was compressed.
Let us know what happens.

[lysergic]

2 posts above had it right it sounds. Win95 was reinstalled on a drive with either IE4 or IE5 installed and was not uninstalled before the reinstall.

Best bet is to reinstall IE then uninstall it back to IE3(or 4 if it is 95c) then reinstall win95 on top of itself then reinstall IE.

There is also a program I used to use all the time when I was a bench tech that runs from DOS called KillIE.bat. Just run that before reinstalling (and you must reinstall after running it). It wipes out the registry keys and files that IE changes.