Windows problem solved - but how did it work??

Hope someone can help my curiosity. A friend has run Window ME (which was
an upgrade from Windows 98) for several years but over the past few months
he had problems booting up. He would get requested for scan disks several
times, it would hang up, etc. My son and I took a look at it and also found
on boot up that the hard drive and CD-RW was not listed in the boot up
sequence or in BIOS. On restarting it usually found them the second time
and the PC worked fine. We also sometimes got a 'Windows creating a drivers
list' that was very very slow to do.

We reinstalled ME over the original and this took forever. Particular when
it got to the setting up hardware stage (about 90+ minutes). The hard drive
light would flicker on momentarily and than nothing for several minutes,
then another flicker. Eventually we got to the last bit (final
configuration stage) and it ran normal. The PC is working fine now but I'm
interesting just to know what the original problem was and why it took so
long to reinstall Me.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

John

John,

Delays when reinstalling Win Me.

If this was a reinstall over Win Me and Norton System Words was installed
then the problem could be due to NSW filling the windows\inf folder with
very large numbers of zero byte oem*.inf files which can cause
considerable delays when updating drivers and hardware. See KB 281967 -
"Computer Stops Responding (Hangs) During Setup, Installing Updates, or
Adding New Hardware" (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=281967).

Note also if this was a reinstallation of Win Me over itself I would
suspect a significant number of hotfixes need to be reinstalled although
this will not be mentioned when visiting the windows update site.
Probably the easiest way to determine which need to be reinstalled is to
download and use Belarc Advisor (http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html)
which will help you in
identify which patches also need to be reinstalled.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



John wrote:

Hope someone can help my curiosity. A friend has run Window ME
(which was an upgrade from Windows 98) for several years but over the
past few months he had problems booting up. He would get requested
for scan disks several times, it would hang up, etc. My son and I
took a look at it and also found on boot up that the hard drive and
CD-RW was not listed in the boot up sequence or in BIOS. On
restarting it usually found them the second time and the PC worked
fine. We also sometimes got a 'Windows creating a drivers list' that
was very very slow to do.
We reinstalled ME over the original and this took forever. Particular
when it got to the setting up hardware stage (about 90+
minutes). The hard drive light would flicker on momentarily and than
nothing for several minutes, then another flicker. Eventually we got
to the last bit (final configuration stage) and it ran normal. The
PC is working fine now but I'm interesting just to know what the
original problem was and why it took so long to reinstall Me.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

John

"Norton System Words" - is this some strange incantation that Symantec have
developed?g
(otherwise - that was my first thought also!)

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"Mike M" wrote in message
...
John,

Delays when reinstalling Win Me.

If this was a reinstall over Win Me and Norton System Words was installed
then the problem could be due to NSW filling the windows\inf folder with
very large numbers of zero byte oem*.inf files which can cause
considerable delays when updating drivers and hardware. See KB 281967 -
"Computer Stops Responding (Hangs) During Setup, Installing Updates, or
Adding New Hardware" (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=281967).

Note also if this was a reinstallation of Win Me over itself I would
suspect a significant number of hotfixes need to be reinstalled although
this will not be mentioned when visiting the windows update site. Probably
the easiest way to determine which need to be reinstalled is to download
and use Belarc Advisor (http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html) which
will help you in
identify which patches also need to be reinstalled.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



John wrote:

Hope someone can help my curiosity. A friend has run Window ME
(which was an upgrade from Windows 98) for several years but over the
past few months he had problems booting up. He would get requested
for scan disks several times, it would hang up, etc. My son and I
took a look at it and also found on boot up that the hard drive and
CD-RW was not listed in the boot up sequence or in BIOS. On
restarting it usually found them the second time and the PC worked
fine. We also sometimes got a 'Windows creating a drivers list' that
was very very slow to do.
We reinstalled ME over the original and this took forever. Particular
when it got to the setting up hardware stage (about 90+
minutes). The hard drive light would flicker on momentarily and than
nothing for several minutes, then another flicker. Eventually we got
to the last bit (final configuration stage) and it ran normal. The
PC is working fine now but I'm interesting just to know what the
original problem was and why it took so long to reinstall Me.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

John

Noel Paton wrote:

"Norton System Words" - is this some strange incantation that
Symantec have developed?g
(otherwise - that was my first thought also!)

Maybe not "Words" but for sure one thing Norton rarely does is "Work".
:-)
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 13:38:11 +0000 (UTC), "John"
wrote:

Hope someone can help my curiosity. A friend has run Window ME (which was
an upgrade from Windows 98)

That could have been the cause. When changing to a new OS, you should
always get rid of the old one first and start over. The "simple"
method of upgrading without removing the old OS first keeps much of
the accumulated corruption of the previous OS.

Note that you can still do this if you have an "upgrade" CD (as long
as you still have the original CD for "proof").

for several years but over the past few months
he had problems booting up. He would get requested for scan disks several
times, it would hang up, etc. My son and I took a look at it and also found
on boot up that the hard drive and CD-RW was not listed in the boot up
sequence or in BIOS. On restarting it usually found them the second time
and the PC worked fine. We also sometimes got a 'Windows creating a drivers
list' that was very very slow to do.

We reinstalled ME over the original and this took forever. Particular when
it got to the setting up hardware stage (about 90+ minutes). The hard drive
light would flicker on momentarily and than nothing for several minutes,
then another flicker. Eventually we got to the last bit (final
configuration stage) and it ran normal. The PC is working fine now but I'm
interesting just to know what the original problem was and why it took so
long to reinstall Me.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

John


--
27 days until the winter solstice celebration

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

Isn't Norton System Works a contradiction in terms?
Good Luck
BarryG

"Mike M" wrote:

Noel Paton wrote:

"Norton System Words" - is this some strange incantation that
Symantec have developed?g
(otherwise - that was my first thought also!)

Maybe not "Words" but for sure one thing Norton rarely does is "Work".
:-)
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP

....or even an oxymoron? (emphasis on the ...well I'm sure I don't need to
spell it outg)

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's

"BarryG" wrote in message
...
Isn't Norton System Works a contradiction in terms?
Good Luck
BarryG

"Mike M" wrote:

Noel Paton wrote:

"Norton System Words" - is this some strange incantation that
Symantec have developed?g
(otherwise - that was my first thought also!)

Maybe not "Words" but for sure one thing Norton rarely does is "Work".
:-)
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP