Clean ME

Thanks Mike, I'll check later and report the outcome.

Craig.

"Mike M" wrote:

canna wrote:

Thanks Mike, looking at the disk further, it is just a standard boot
floppy. It looks like I don't have a recovery disk.

How would I check the system for a hidden partition containing an
image of the system as delivered?

Craig,

Try the following,

Click Start | Run and enter FDISK in the box and click OK. Click Y when
asked if you want to enable large disk support. Now enter 4 to display
partition information. You should see your C: partition (Status A, Type
PRI DOS) plus any other partitions that you might have that are visible in
Win Me together with their enumerated drive letter. If there is a hidden
partition this should show up but without a drive letter and probably with
a different status and type.
--
Mike Maltby

Mike, nothing the but the C: drive. Looks like I'll have to remove everything
manually.

Thanks,

Craig.

"canna" wrote:

Thanks Mike, I'll check later and report the outcome.

Craig.

"Mike M" wrote:

canna wrote:

Thanks Mike, looking at the disk further, it is just a standard boot
floppy. It looks like I don't have a recovery disk.

How would I check the system for a hidden partition containing an
image of the system as delivered?

Craig,

Try the following,

Click Start | Run and enter FDISK in the box and click OK. Click Y when
asked if you want to enable large disk support. Now enter 4 to display
partition information. You should see your C: partition (Status A, Type
PRI DOS) plus any other partitions that you might have that are visible in
Win Me together with their enumerated drive letter. If there is a hidden
partition this should show up but without a drive letter and probably with
a different status and type.
--
Mike Maltby

Thanks for correcting my ignorance Noel; would the swapfile sectors usually
be scattered in blocks all over the detail map but apparently consistently
in the same place in the map?

--
Delboy

A common mistake that people made when trying to design something completely
foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams
"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Defrag will NOT show an 'image partition' - simply because Defrag only
looks
at the active partition. The 'unmovable' clusters in defrag are usually
the
swapfile

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.crashfixpc.com/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"Delboy" wrote in message
...
Hi canna

Time supplied at extra cost a (in my case) green CD titled "Your
Reload/Backup CDv6". This contains about 1.4Mb of files to access a
Ghost
image of the original "out of the box" state in hidden, non readable
partition(s) on the HD.

I do not know if all Time computers had the Ghost image loaded as
standard
on the HD and only had to put the recovery CD in the box or specially
formatted HDs with the Ghost partition as a special. Mike M (I think)
suggested a file to me that might detail hidden partitions, but when I
tried
that file, it did not find any hidden partitions on my HD.

Only other thing I can suggest is; when you defrag, in the detail view,
do
you see lots of sectors shown as white squares with a red corner (data
that
will not be moved)? These MAY be the hidden Ghost partitions.

If you want more details of my machine, unmunge my email addy and
contact
me
direct.

--
Delboy

A common mistake that people made when trying to design something
completely
foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams
"canna" wrote in message
...
Hi,

As I prepare to receive my new machine and move to XP, I'm going to
sell
my
current PC running an OEM version of WinMe. It didn't come with a winME
disk
and I'm wondering is there a way to clean the PC and leave it as if ME
has
just been installed.

Any ideas?

Many thanks,

Craig.

Craig,

Before you do anything please check the following:
Look for a folder containing the file BASE2.CAB. By default this will be
either C:\Windows\Options\Install or C:\Windows\Options\Cabs but some OEMs
place it elsewhere, sometimes even on a second partition. When located and
if it contains not only BASE2.CAB but also other cab files including
PRECOPY.CAB, CABINET.CAB, and several others such as NET3.CAB, DRIVER5.CAB
and WIN_8.CAB as well as the all important setup.exe then this is the
folder you need. Copy the entire contents of this folder to a CD. The
total size should be at least 153MB and at least 52 files plus possibly a
folder.

Once you have a CD containing the Win Me cab files and setup.exe and know
the product key and have a bootable floppy to hand you are all set to wipe
you hard disk and can clean install Win Me by running setup.exe on the CD
you made.

If you don't have the product key to hand you can recover the product key
from the registry using a program such as Belarc Adviser or AIDA32
(http://www.aumha.org/downloads/aida32.zip) or by using Regedit and noting
the data for the value ProductKey found at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



canna wrote:

Mike, nothing the but the C: drive. Looks like I'll have to remove
everything manually.

Yes - because the swapfile is active whenever Windows is running.

One way around this is to set the swapfile to zero, then reboot to Safe
Mode, and run defrag from there - then (after the hours taken to do the
defrag) reset the swapfile to 'Windows managed', and reboot to Normal Mode -
and see what happens.

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.crashfixpc.com/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"Delboy" wrote in message
...
Thanks for correcting my ignorance Noel; would the swapfile sectors
usually
be scattered in blocks all over the detail map but apparently consistently
in the same place in the map?

--
Delboy

A common mistake that people made when trying to design something
completely
foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams
"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Defrag will NOT show an 'image partition' - simply because Defrag only
looks
at the active partition. The 'unmovable' clusters in defrag are usually
the
swapfile

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.crashfixpc.com/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"Delboy" wrote in message
...
Hi canna

Time supplied at extra cost a (in my case) green CD titled "Your
Reload/Backup CDv6". This contains about 1.4Mb of files to access a
Ghost
image of the original "out of the box" state in hidden, non readable
partition(s) on the HD.

I do not know if all Time computers had the Ghost image loaded as
standard
on the HD and only had to put the recovery CD in the box or specially
formatted HDs with the Ghost partition as a special. Mike M (I think)
suggested a file to me that might detail hidden partitions, but when I
tried
that file, it did not find any hidden partitions on my HD.

Only other thing I can suggest is; when you defrag, in the detail view,
do
you see lots of sectors shown as white squares with a red corner (data
that
will not be moved)? These MAY be the hidden Ghost partitions.

If you want more details of my machine, unmunge my email addy and
contact
me
direct.

--
Delboy

A common mistake that people made when trying to design something
completely
foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams
"canna" wrote in message
...
Hi,

As I prepare to receive my new machine and move to XP, I'm going to
sell
my
current PC running an OEM version of WinMe. It didn't come with a
winME
disk
and I'm wondering is there a way to clean the PC and leave it as if ME
has
just been installed.

Any ideas?

Many thanks,

Craig.

Ok Mike, my C:\Windows\Options\Install folder has 25 .CAB's including the
one's you mentioned except CABINET.CAB. Did you mean CATALOG.CAB?
Also has 1 folder named DslDrv and 53 files. 79 objects in total and is 159MB.

I have found my product key using regedit and I'm ready to go, My new PC is
not due till mid April so I'm going to wait till then but I will let you know
the outcome.

Many thanks for taking the time to help.

Craig.


"Mike M" wrote:

Craig,

Before you do anything please check the following:
Look for a folder containing the file BASE2.CAB. By default this will be
either C:\Windows\Options\Install or C:\Windows\Options\Cabs but some OEMs
place it elsewhere, sometimes even on a second partition. When located and
if it contains not only BASE2.CAB but also other cab files including
PRECOPY.CAB, CABINET.CAB, and several others such as NET3.CAB, DRIVER5.CAB
and WIN_8.CAB as well as the all important setup.exe then this is the
folder you need. Copy the entire contents of this folder to a CD. The
total size should be at least 153MB and at least 52 files plus possibly a
folder.

Once you have a CD containing the Win Me cab files and setup.exe and know
the product key and have a bootable floppy to hand you are all set to wipe
you hard disk and can clean install Win Me by running setup.exe on the CD
you made.

If you don't have the product key to hand you can recover the product key
from the registry using a program such as Belarc Adviser or AIDA32
(http://www.aumha.org/downloads/aida32.zip) or by using Regedit and noting
the data for the value ProductKey found at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



canna wrote:

Mike, nothing the but the C: drive. Looks like I'll have to remove
everything manually.

Craig,

Yes I meant catalog.cab so provided that you have setup.exe it would
appear that you should now be able to clean install Win Me by copying
those files to a CD, wiping/formatting your hard disk and reinstalling Win
Me using your home made CD and the product key you recovered. The folder
Dsldrv sounds very much as if it contains the drivers for perhaps a usb
adsl modem. It would also be a good idea to try and obtain copies of the
drivers for your hardware but in most cases you should be able to do that
once you have reinstalled the system and got it up and running.

If you hit problems either post back or feel free to e-mail me using the
address below my signature.
--
Mike Maltby



canna wrote:

Ok Mike, my C:\Windows\Options\Install folder has 25 .CAB's including
the one's you mentioned except CABINET.CAB. Did you mean CATALOG.CAB?
Also has 1 folder named DslDrv and 53 files. 79 objects in total and
is 159MB.

I have found my product key using regedit and I'm ready to go, My new
PC is not due till mid April so I'm going to wait till then but I
will let you know the outcome.

Many thanks for taking the time to help.

Thanks Mike, The PC did come with a driver CD so shouldn't have any problems
there.

Craig.

"Mike M" wrote:

Craig,

Yes I meant catalog.cab so provided that you have setup.exe it would
appear that you should now be able to clean install Win Me by copying
those files to a CD, wiping/formatting your hard disk and reinstalling Win
Me using your home made CD and the product key you recovered. The folder
Dsldrv sounds very much as if it contains the drivers for perhaps a usb
adsl modem. It would also be a good idea to try and obtain copies of the
drivers for your hardware but in most cases you should be able to do that
once you have reinstalled the system and got it up and running.

If you hit problems either post back or feel free to e-mail me using the
address below my signature.
--
Mike Maltby



canna wrote:

Ok Mike, my C:\Windows\Options\Install folder has 25 .CAB's including
the one's you mentioned except CABINET.CAB. Did you mean CATALOG.CAB?
Also has 1 folder named DslDrv and 53 files. 79 objects in total and
is 159MB.

I have found my product key using regedit and I'm ready to go, My new
PC is not due till mid April so I'm going to wait till then but I
will let you know the outcome.

Many thanks for taking the time to help.

Thanks for clearing up those details Noel.

--
Delboy

A common mistake that people made when trying to design something completely
foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams
"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Yes - because the swapfile is active whenever Windows is running.

One way around this is to set the swapfile to zero, then reboot to Safe
Mode, and run defrag from there - then (after the hours taken to do the
defrag) reset the swapfile to 'Windows managed', and reboot to Normal
Mode -
and see what happens.

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.crashfixpc.com/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"Delboy" wrote in message
...
Thanks for correcting my ignorance Noel; would the swapfile sectors
usually
be scattered in blocks all over the detail map but apparently
consistently
in the same place in the map?

--
Delboy

A common mistake that people made when trying to design something
completely
foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams
"Noel Paton" wrote in message
...
Defrag will NOT show an 'image partition' - simply because Defrag only
looks
at the active partition. The 'unmovable' clusters in defrag are usually
the
swapfile

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.crashfixpc.com/millsrpch.htm

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to
NG's
"Delboy" wrote in message
...
Hi canna

Time supplied at extra cost a (in my case) green CD titled "Your
Reload/Backup CDv6". This contains about 1.4Mb of files to access a
Ghost
image of the original "out of the box" state in hidden, non readable
partition(s) on the HD.

I do not know if all Time computers had the Ghost image loaded as
standard
on the HD and only had to put the recovery CD in the box or specially
formatted HDs with the Ghost partition as a special. Mike M (I think)
suggested a file to me that might detail hidden partitions, but when
I
tried
that file, it did not find any hidden partitions on my HD.

Only other thing I can suggest is; when you defrag, in the detail
view,
do
you see lots of sectors shown as white squares with a red corner
(data
that
will not be moved)? These MAY be the hidden Ghost partitions.

If you want more details of my machine, unmunge my email addy and
contact
me
direct.

--
Delboy

A common mistake that people made when trying to design something
completely
foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Douglas Adams
"canna" wrote in message
...
Hi,

As I prepare to receive my new machine and move to XP, I'm going to
sell
my
current PC running an OEM version of WinMe. It didn't come with a
winME
disk
and I'm wondering is there a way to clean the PC and leave it as if
ME
has
just been installed.

Any ideas?

Many thanks,

Craig.

well you will need to delete all your music files but not the acctual folder
its stored in,do this to all music and pics and any downloaded programmes
that you installed such as limewire or bittorent etc,do not delete any
windows files.althoug some programmes will be stored among the origonal
format on c.go to control panel and then open add and remove programmes and
then you can saftley remove the unwnted download installations.then run scan
disk.delete temp internet files,delete cookies and then run disk
defragmentation this should get the pc running pritty smooth and almost like
new.