Messed Windows 95 system

[The Computer Valet]

Hey all,

I am hoping for some direction here.

I have a system running Windows 95c. I was called in because the system errored out looking for WIN.COM. I extracted one from the CABS on the hard drive and the system booted normally a few times.

Since then, right after loading WIN.COM, the system shuts off immediately. I have tried re-replacing the WIN.COM file to no avail.

I SUSPECT a memory problem at this point. (I've seen a Win 98 machine behave the same way.) But the hard drive has a lot of FILE####.CHK files and it makes me wonder about some progessive disk corruption.

Anyway, I thought about doing a "repair install," but I don't even know if Win 95 does such a thing. Another idea that came to mind would be to reinstall 95 then use the old registry files in the hopes that this would keep applications intact.

There's always the option of going to 98, but it's a very old system and if there is a RAM and/or hard drive problem, it seems to me this would be futile.

The ideal goal here is to get back to 95.

Any thoughts?

Thanks....

[InTheWayBoy]

I would think hard drive is going south...those *.CHK are never good, and that would explain why win.com went missing in the first place! As for a repair install, I know with Win98/WinME you can use the /NTDLR switch, but I don't know if Win95 supports that. As a tech, I would just back up the data and break the news that they need a new computer...I understand money is an issue sometimes, but come on...Win95?!? Good luck!

[freddy]

Hey all,

I am hoping for some direction here.

I have a system running Windows 95c. I was called in because the system errored out looking for WIN.COM. I extracted one from the CABS on the hard drive and the system booted normally a few times.

Since then, right after loading WIN.COM, the system shuts off immediately. I have tried re-replacing the WIN.COM file to no avail.

I SUSPECT a memory problem at this point. (I've seen a Win 98 machine behave the same way.) But the hard drive has a lot of FILE####.CHK files and it makes me wonder about some progessive disk corruption.

Anyway, I thought about doing a "repair install," but I don't even know if Win 95 does such a thing. Another idea that came to mind would be to reinstall 95 then use the old registry files in the hopes that this would keep applications intact.

There's always the option of going to 98, but it's a very old system and if there is a RAM and/or hard drive problem, it seems to me this would be futile.

The ideal goal here is to get back to 95.

Any thoughts?

Thanks....

i agree on the drive being bad ,,,do a scandisk,in dos and let it show the faulty sectors , then you can show the screen to customer ,,,,if he can see it (a lot of red X ,,,you have got him ,,,

if you have a second udser drive , you can do the repair again , then ghost it over,

noo noo linked to this the other day http://www.dposoft.net/ , hard disk regenerator (on right of page) , if you seem to be working on older machines , this proggy (reg version) might come in handy for you.

[NooNoo]

noo noo linked to this the other day http://www.dposoft.net/ , hard disk regenerator (on right of page) , if you seem to be working on older machines , this proggy (reg version) might come in handy for you.

I did?

win95 you just install over, there is no "repair" as such. If win.com is missing it will install over and use the existing system.dat (registry) and rebuild.

[jitBob]

I did?

win95 you just install over, there is no "repair" as such. If win.com is missing it will install over and use the existing system.dat (registry) and rebuild.

Yes and if the win.com file does exist, just start in dos mode and rename it to something like oldwin.com, reboot and then reinstall. Make sure that the directory it installs to is the C:\Windows directory and not something like C:\Windows00.

[The Computer Valet]

So A reinstall of Win95 will use the exisiting registry and not wipe out installed apps?

[jitBob]

So A reinstall of Win95 will use the exisiting registry and not wipe out installed apps?

Yes, just make certain to follow the instructions above.