Unable to boot to Windows 98

I am having trouble restarting Windows 98. After
resarting Windows, I am taken to the command prompt
window, with the following message: "Windows detected
registry/config error. Choose command prompt only, and
run scanreg".

1.When I run scanreg under the command prompt, I am taken
to the Microsoft Registry Checker page. After several
minutes checking the registry files, a C:\ prompt appears
and it just hangs.

2. When I restarted windows and run normal mode, scandisk
indicates that it is now checking device C for errors.
After hanging for several minutes, the following error
message appears: "Scandisk encountered a data error while
reading FAT on Drive C. This prevents scandisk from
fixing the problem."

Then I am sent back to MS WIndows 98 screen, where it
hangs.

I tried following the instructions from Microsoft
Knowledge Base Article - 221512; How to Manually Restore
the Windows 98/Me Registry. But I get an error message at
the scanreg\restore command [bad command].

Thank you.

Ralph

The key is the 2nd part where scandisk cannot run due to errors surrounding
that file allocation table (FAT). You ain't going nowhere until this is
fixed.
"Ralph Davis" wrote in message
...

I am having trouble restarting Windows 98. After
resarting Windows, I am taken to the command prompt
window, with the following message: "Windows detected
registry/config error. Choose command prompt only, and
run scanreg".

1.When I run scanreg under the command prompt, I am taken
to the Microsoft Registry Checker page. After several
minutes checking the registry files, a C:\ prompt appears
and it just hangs.

2. When I restarted windows and run normal mode, scandisk
indicates that it is now checking device C for errors.
After hanging for several minutes, the following error
message appears: "Scandisk encountered a data error while
reading FAT on Drive C. This prevents scandisk from
fixing the problem."

Then I am sent back to MS WIndows 98 screen, where it
hangs.

I tried following the instructions from Microsoft
Knowledge Base Article - 221512; How to Manually Restore
the Windows 98/Me Registry. But I get an error message at
the scanreg\restore command [bad command].

Thank you.

Ralph

On Mon, 5 Jul 2004 13:33:23 -0700, "Ralph Davis"
wrote:


I am having trouble restarting Windows 98. After
resarting Windows, I am taken to the command prompt
window, with the following message: "Windows detected
registry/config error. Choose command prompt only, and
run scanreg".

1.When I run scanreg under the command prompt, I am taken
to the Microsoft Registry Checker page. After several
minutes checking the registry files, a C:\ prompt appears
and it just hangs.

2. When I restarted windows and run normal mode, scandisk
indicates that it is now checking device C for errors.
After hanging for several minutes, the following error
message appears: "Scandisk encountered a data error while
reading FAT on Drive C. This prevents scandisk from
fixing the problem."

Then I am sent back to MS WIndows 98 screen, where it
hangs.

I tried following the instructions from Microsoft
Knowledge Base Article - 221512; How to Manually Restore
the Windows 98/Me Registry. But I get an error message at
the scanreg\restore command [bad command].

Thank you.

Ralph

Ralph,

That should be Scanreg /restore. Forward slash /. Otherwise you get
the bad command error.

I doubt if restoring a registry will help the FAT error though.

The VFAT.VXD file is the Virtual File Allocation Table (FAT) Device
32-Bit File Access Provider (VFAT)(Base).

The file may be corrupt so you might try restoring the file from the
CD. Boot with a Win98 Startup diskette and enter EXT.
Extract from=should be the Win98 folder on the CD.
Answer the prompts and extract to the WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32
folder.
Don't specify a CAB file, EXT will search all the CAB files for
vfat.vxd.
Try restoring a previous registry from before the problem started
and try extracting the file and see what happens.

Remove the diskette and reboot.

Regards,

Bill Watt
Computer Help and Information http://home.epix.net/~bwatt/