windows 98 SE fails to install
 

hope there is some help out there. I have a computer that ran windows 98 SE.
My kid got a virus on it, so bad, that it could not boot up. (Of course she
did not say anything and kept trying to reboot so I can not turn the system
back to the last clean boot).

I removed the hard drive and did a virus scan from another computer. Bingo,
there wiere a combination of 119 Viruses, Tojans and Mal Ware. I scanned it
again using a different antivirus software on a different computer and it was
clean. I copied all documents, pictures, worksheets etc onto a CD to save
information.


Put back the hard drive and tried to boot up and it stalls.

I went into safemode and tried again. It runs through the Windows Setup
screen, by stalls at the configuring system step. I let it run for 24 hour
and it remaine at 6 bars across the bottom.

Obviously the virus attacked some critical portion of windows, but I do not
know what part. I have all the CDs that came with the computer, but not sure
of the proper steps to reinstall windows. I really do not want to reformat
the hard drive.

This computer has a couple of games that do not work with XP, so my kid
wants it back to play those games. If I can get it working it will still be
good for the under age 10 crowd in the house.

Any pointers greatfull appreciated.

--
gray57
just want to learn more

windows 98 SE fails to install
 

gray57 wrote:

I have a computer that ran windows 98 SE.
My kid got a virus on it

I removed the hard drive and did a virus scan from another computer.
I copied all documents, pictures, worksheets etc onto a CD to save
information.

Put back the hard drive and tried to boot up and it stalls.

Any pointers greatfull appreciated.

My primary suggestion would be to purchase a new drive. An 80 gb IDE
drive would cost about $40 or $50 bucks, and would probably be the
smallest capacity (and least expensive) drive that you can still easily
purchase new. I suggest buying a new drive because your existing drive
is probably 5 to 10 years old and is probably very close to the end of
it's mechanical life.

But in any case, even if you keep using the original drive, the best
course of action would be to reformat it and reinstall windows 98.
There is no easy, automatic, or zero-cost way to run a repair program on
the drive to "freshen up" the files and surgically remove all remnants
of viral activity, repair any registry dammage or file dammage, etc.
Such programs don't exist.

I'm thinking that you no longer have a win-98 installation CD. You can
obtain one from a torrent very easily. The only hassle with
re-installing win-98 is that you'll (probably) have to hunt down the
motherboard and video drivers and have them ready to install once the
initial win-98 install has finished.

Taking out the drive and slaving it to another computer (presumably a
windows XP machine) was a good idea as far as scanning it for malware.
But the best you can do in that situation is remove the mal-files, scan
the drive for bad sectors and repair the file system (cross-linked
sectors) and defrag it.

I guess you could try to start it in DOS mode (press f8 repeatedly while
it's booting so you get the startup menu, select command prompt, then
run the command "scanreg /fix". If that doesn't work, then try again,
but this time enter the command "scanreg /restore" and select an older
version of the registry (select them all, one at a time, until you run
out of selections or the system starts normally).

If Win-98 isin't starting for you (if instead it's trying to re-install
itself) then you're best off formatting the drive and performing a
correct installation from a win-98 CD.

windows 98 SE fails to install
 

gray57 wrote:

I have a computer that ran windows 98 SE.
My kid got a virus on it

I removed the hard drive and did a virus scan from another computer.
I copied all documents, pictures, worksheets etc onto a CD to save
information.

Put back the hard drive and tried to boot up and it stalls.

Any pointers greatfull appreciated.

My primary suggestion would be to purchase a new drive. An 80 gb IDE
drive would cost about $40 or $50 bucks, and would probably be the
smallest capacity (and least expensive) drive that you can still easily
purchase new. I suggest buying a new drive because your existing drive
is probably 5 to 10 years old and is probably very close to the end of
it's mechanical life.

But in any case, even if you keep using the original drive, the best
course of action would be to reformat it and reinstall windows 98.
There is no easy, automatic, or zero-cost way to run a repair program on
the drive to "freshen up" the files and surgically remove all remnants
of viral activity, repair any registry dammage or file dammage, etc.
Such programs don't exist.

I'm thinking that you no longer have a win-98 installation CD. You can
obtain one from a torrent very easily. The only hassle with
re-installing win-98 is that you'll (probably) have to hunt down the
motherboard and video drivers and have them ready to install once the
initial win-98 install has finished.

Taking out the drive and slaving it to another computer (presumably a
windows XP machine) was a good idea as far as scanning it for malware.
But the best you can do in that situation is remove the mal-files, scan
the drive for bad sectors and repair the file system (cross-linked
sectors) and defrag it.

I guess you could try to start it in DOS mode (press f8 repeatedly while
it's booting so you get the startup menu, select command prompt, then
run the command "scanreg /fix". If that doesn't work, then try again,
but this time enter the command "scanreg /restore" and select an older
version of the registry (select them all, one at a time, until you run
out of selections or the system starts normally).

If Win-98 isin't starting for you (if instead it's trying to re-install
itself) then you're best off formatting the drive and performing a
correct installation from a win-98 CD.

windows 98 SE fails to install
 

Thanks for the help. I thought it was pretty much a lost cause. I do have
all the original disks and product key codes, so I guess I will reformat and
reinstall.
--
gray57
just want to learn more


"98 Guy" wrote:

gray57 wrote:

I have a computer that ran windows 98 SE.
My kid got a virus on it

I removed the hard drive and did a virus scan from another computer.
I copied all documents, pictures, worksheets etc onto a CD to save
information.

Put back the hard drive and tried to boot up and it stalls.

Any pointers greatfull appreciated.

My primary suggestion would be to purchase a new drive. An 80 gb IDE
drive would cost about $40 or $50 bucks, and would probably be the
smallest capacity (and least expensive) drive that you can still easily
purchase new. I suggest buying a new drive because your existing drive
is probably 5 to 10 years old and is probably very close to the end of
it's mechanical life.

But in any case, even if you keep using the original drive, the best
course of action would be to reformat it and reinstall windows 98.
There is no easy, automatic, or zero-cost way to run a repair program on
the drive to "freshen up" the files and surgically remove all remnants
of viral activity, repair any registry dammage or file dammage, etc.
Such programs don't exist.

I'm thinking that you no longer have a win-98 installation CD. You can
obtain one from a torrent very easily. The only hassle with
re-installing win-98 is that you'll (probably) have to hunt down the
motherboard and video drivers and have them ready to install once the
initial win-98 install has finished.

Taking out the drive and slaving it to another computer (presumably a
windows XP machine) was a good idea as far as scanning it for malware.
But the best you can do in that situation is remove the mal-files, scan
the drive for bad sectors and repair the file system (cross-linked
sectors) and defrag it.

I guess you could try to start it in DOS mode (press f8 repeatedly while
it's booting so you get the startup menu, select command prompt, then
run the command "scanreg /fix". If that doesn't work, then try again,
but this time enter the command "scanreg /restore" and select an older
version of the registry (select them all, one at a time, until you run
out of selections or the system starts normally).

If Win-98 isin't starting for you (if instead it's trying to re-install
itself) then you're best off formatting the drive and performing a
correct installation from a win-98 CD.

windows 98 SE fails to install
 

Thanks for the help. I thought it was pretty much a lost cause. I do have
all the original disks and product key codes, so I guess I will reformat and
reinstall.
--
gray57
just want to learn more


"98 Guy" wrote:

gray57 wrote:

I have a computer that ran windows 98 SE.
My kid got a virus on it

I removed the hard drive and did a virus scan from another computer.
I copied all documents, pictures, worksheets etc onto a CD to save
information.

Put back the hard drive and tried to boot up and it stalls.

Any pointers greatfull appreciated.

My primary suggestion would be to purchase a new drive. An 80 gb IDE
drive would cost about $40 or $50 bucks, and would probably be the
smallest capacity (and least expensive) drive that you can still easily
purchase new. I suggest buying a new drive because your existing drive
is probably 5 to 10 years old and is probably very close to the end of
it's mechanical life.

But in any case, even if you keep using the original drive, the best
course of action would be to reformat it and reinstall windows 98.
There is no easy, automatic, or zero-cost way to run a repair program on
the drive to "freshen up" the files and surgically remove all remnants
of viral activity, repair any registry dammage or file dammage, etc.
Such programs don't exist.

I'm thinking that you no longer have a win-98 installation CD. You can
obtain one from a torrent very easily. The only hassle with
re-installing win-98 is that you'll (probably) have to hunt down the
motherboard and video drivers and have them ready to install once the
initial win-98 install has finished.

Taking out the drive and slaving it to another computer (presumably a
windows XP machine) was a good idea as far as scanning it for malware.
But the best you can do in that situation is remove the mal-files, scan
the drive for bad sectors and repair the file system (cross-linked
sectors) and defrag it.

I guess you could try to start it in DOS mode (press f8 repeatedly while
it's booting so you get the startup menu, select command prompt, then
run the command "scanreg /fix". If that doesn't work, then try again,
but this time enter the command "scanreg /restore" and select an older
version of the registry (select them all, one at a time, until you run
out of selections or the system starts normally).

If Win-98 isin't starting for you (if instead it's trying to re-install
itself) then you're best off formatting the drive and performing a
correct installation from a win-98 CD.

windows 98 SE fails to install
 

"gray57" wrote in message ...
hope there is some help out there. I have a computer that ran windows 98 SE.
My kid got a virus on it, so bad, that it could not boot up. (Of course she
did not say anything and kept trying to reboot so I can not turn the system
back to the last clean boot).
I removed the hard drive and did a virus scan from another computer. Bingo,
there wiere a combination of 119 Viruses, Tojans and Mal Ware. I scanned it
again using a different antivirus software on a different computer and it was
clean. I copied all documents, pictures, worksheets etc onto a CD to save
information.
Put back the hard drive and tried to boot up and it stalls.
I went into safemode and tried again. It runs through the Windows Setup
screen, by stalls at the configuring system step. I let it run for 24 hour
and it remaine at 6 bars across the bottom.
snip

Go into the BIOS setup and see if boot virus protection is enabled. If so,
disable it. Be sure the save the settings when exiting. If this doesn't help,
try cleaning the Windows 98 CD or copying the setup files to the hard drive
and running setup from there.

Ben

windows 98 SE fails to install
 

"gray57" wrote in message ...
hope there is some help out there. I have a computer that ran windows 98 SE.
My kid got a virus on it, so bad, that it could not boot up. (Of course she
did not say anything and kept trying to reboot so I can not turn the system
back to the last clean boot).
I removed the hard drive and did a virus scan from another computer. Bingo,
there wiere a combination of 119 Viruses, Tojans and Mal Ware. I scanned it
again using a different antivirus software on a different computer and it was
clean. I copied all documents, pictures, worksheets etc onto a CD to save
information.
Put back the hard drive and tried to boot up and it stalls.
I went into safemode and tried again. It runs through the Windows Setup
screen, by stalls at the configuring system step. I let it run for 24 hour
and it remaine at 6 bars across the bottom.
snip

Go into the BIOS setup and see if boot virus protection is enabled. If so,
disable it. Be sure the save the settings when exiting. If this doesn't help,
try cleaning the Windows 98 CD or copying the setup files to the hard drive
and running setup from there.

Ben