Windows 98 reinstall from c: drive

Thanks, Ben!

What does the "/t:" switch do? I am not familiar...

Ben

"Ben Myers" wrote:

Create a temporary directory manually using "md".

md c:\temp

Then run setup with the "/t:" switch.

setup /t:c:\temp

Ben

"BenL" wrote in message ...
I have an old machine that had windows98. Recently, we had a power out and
when I restarted the machine, it went through the usual blue screen "scan for
errors" routine. Foolishly I eXited from this (as I often did!) but I
subsequently received an error message (in DOS) that GDI.EXE couldn't load
and that I would have to reinstall windows. The PC then, within a fraction of
a second, turned off.

Having researched the on-line resources, I booted up into DOS and
reinstalled the fonts in c:\windows\fonts from the copy of the WIN98 disk
that I have on my c: drive. This did not solve the problem.

So, I thought, OK, let's reinstall windows from DOS, and I proceeded to run
SETUP from the copy of the windows98 disk that I have on the c:drive. (I have
lost the actual CD!). Setup went through the scandisk routine and identified
a problem with a long filename that would need scandisk for windows to
resolve, but other than that, was OK. Setup then wento on to scan the system
registry...
...and it said "Cannot create a temporary directory. This may be caused by
too many files in the root directory"...and stopped!

So, I went to the root directory and stripped out all unnecessary files and
folders and tried again, and again... Nothing that I have done seems to have
made any difference.

Any ideas??

Hi, Noel,

The read only files that I can see when I list using the "attrib" command
are as follows:

SUHDLOG.TXT
SUHDLOG.---
SUHDLOG.BAK
MSDOS.SYS
IO.SYS
ASD.LOG
DBLSPACE.BIN
MSDOS.BAK
SYSTEM.1ST
DBLSPACE.INI
DRVSPACE.BIN

These are the read only files - there are others that are system files, but
not read only. Does this give you any clues??

Thanks for your help!
Ben

"Noel Paton" wrote:

Hmmm - that does sound a low number to get so fussed about!
All I can think of is that for some reason one of the critical files is
marked as 'read-only' when it shouldn't be, or there's a naming conflict.
can you list all the files and folders? - and whether any are marked as
'read-only'??

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

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks Noel!

25 files including hidden, and 24 folders. I don't get it! I already moved
most of the files to a temporary folder, although there were never that
many
to begin with.

"Noel Paton" wrote:

How many files does a DIR of the root directory from DOS find??
I suspect that anything over about 70 may have problems - anything over
about 85 certainly will have

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

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks, Ron!

Tried that already. Didn't work. Same as before, Setup went on to scan
the
system registry...
...and it said "Cannot create a temporary directory. This may be caused
by
too many files in the root directory"...and stopped!

Any thoughts on the idea of renaming the windows folder and tying to
install
a new one?


"Ron Badour" wrote:

I am not sure the LFN is the problem but a way around it is to type:
setup.exe /is and this will bypass scandisk during
installation.

--
Regards


Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo



"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks for your input, Don!

Regrettably, it won't start into safe mode - I can only get into the
machine
in DOS so I am unable to run SFC.

In order to reinstall the fonts, I followed the instructions on
support.microsoft.com article number 146904, using the extract
command
and
specifying win98_22.cab as the cabinet file.

The hard disk is nominally a 4Gig drive with 1,136MB free (since I
stripped
out lots of junk files!)

How can I identify the offending LFN from within DOS? It had ocurred
to
me
that renaming this might help.

Do you think that renaming the windows folder and trying to
reinstall a
new
one might work?

Thanks again for your thoughts! Much appreciated!!

"Don Phillipson" wrote:

"BenL" wrote in message
...
I have an old machine that had windows98. Recently, we had a
power
out
and
when I restarted the machine, it went through the usual blue
screen
"scan
for
errors" routine. Foolishly I eXited from this (as I often did!)
but
I
subsequently received an error message (in DOS) that GDI.EXE
couldn't
load
and that I would have to reinstall windows. The PC then, within a
fraction
of
a second, turned off.

This is normal. Power outages can easily corrupt
files that happen to be system files. If you can boot
into Safe Mode (via key F8 during boot process) you
may be able to identify damaged files and replace them
using SFC.EXE = System File Checker.

Having researched the on-line resources, I booted up into DOS and
reinstalled the fonts in c:\windows\fonts from the copy of the
WIN98
disk
that I have on my c: drive. This did not solve the problem.

This appears normal.
(a) Only a couple of fonts are critical to normal Wiin98 startup.
(b) You did not mention how you reinstalled fonts in DOS
(which requires EXP and knowledge of the CAB files.)

Setup went through the scandisk routine and identified
a problem with a long filename that would need scandisk for
windows
to
resolve, but other than that, was OK. Setup then wento on to scan
the
system
registry...
...and it said "Cannot create a temporary directory. This may be
caused
by
too many files in the root directory"...and stopped!

So, I went to the root directory and stripped out all unnecessary
files
and
folders and tried again, and again... Nothing that I have done
seems
to
have
made any difference.

1. It may be worth while identifying that particular LFN file
and renaming it so SCANDISK runs cleanly.
2. You did not mention drive space, empty space, etc: but
this is a clue to delete all unneeded and junk files (e.g.
Temp Internet Files) before you run SCANDISK and before
you reinstal.

If the foregoing would not allow you to reinstal Win98
your fastest solution may be to add a new hard drive
and either (a) instal it as C: so that your old C: becomes
D:, and then instal Windows on the new C:, or
(b) copy all old C: to new D:, then format C: and instal
afresh, after checking all steps listed in
http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/html/w98_restore.html

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

It specifies the temporary directory to which the Windows installer puts the
files during the install (I had to look it up, too!)

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

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks, Ben!

What does the "/t:" switch do? I am not familiar...

Ben

"Ben Myers" wrote:

Create a temporary directory manually using "md".

md c:\temp

Then run setup with the "/t:" switch.

setup /t:c:\temp

Ben

"BenL" wrote in message
...
I have an old machine that had windows98. Recently, we had a power out
and
when I restarted the machine, it went through the usual blue screen
"scan for
errors" routine. Foolishly I eXited from this (as I often did!) but I
subsequently received an error message (in DOS) that GDI.EXE couldn't
load
and that I would have to reinstall windows. The PC then, within a
fraction of
a second, turned off.

Having researched the on-line resources, I booted up into DOS and
reinstalled the fonts in c:\windows\fonts from the copy of the WIN98
disk
that I have on my c: drive. This did not solve the problem.

So, I thought, OK, let's reinstall windows from DOS, and I proceeded to
run
SETUP from the copy of the windows98 disk that I have on the c:drive.
(I have
lost the actual CD!). Setup went through the scandisk routine and
identified
a problem with a long filename that would need scandisk for windows to
resolve, but other than that, was OK. Setup then wento on to scan the
system
registry...
...and it said "Cannot create a temporary directory. This may be caused
by
too many files in the root directory"...and stopped!

So, I went to the root directory and stripped out all unnecessary files
and
folders and tried again, and again... Nothing that I have done seems to
have
made any difference.

Any ideas??

That could explain it!
SUHDLOG.TXT should NOT be read-only - and neither should the backup files
SUHDLOG.--- and SUHDLOG.BAT - nor should ASD.LOG, MSDOS.BAK, DBLSPACE.INI,
or DRVSPACE.BIN

BTW - are you using, or have you used, drive compression on this drive? - if
so, then you will destroy the compression during the install, IIRC,
corrupting all files in the process!

My advice would be to rename them to aaaaaOLD.xxx (just in case!) and remove
the read-only attribute

The only read-only files in root a default install are
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
SUHDLOG.DAT (!!)
SYSTEM.1ST

HTH - good Luck!
--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2006, Windows)

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

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

The read only files that I can see when I list using the "attrib" command
are as follows:

SUHDLOG.TXT
SUHDLOG.---
SUHDLOG.BAK
MSDOS.SYS
IO.SYS
ASD.LOG
DBLSPACE.BIN
MSDOS.BAK
SYSTEM.1ST
DBLSPACE.INI
DRVSPACE.BIN

These are the read only files - there are others that are system files,
but
not read only. Does this give you any clues??

Thanks for your help!
Ben

"Noel Paton" wrote:

Hmmm - that does sound a low number to get so fussed about!
All I can think of is that for some reason one of the critical files is
marked as 'read-only' when it shouldn't be, or there's a naming conflict.
can you list all the files and folders? - and whether any are marked as
'read-only'??

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

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks Noel!

25 files including hidden, and 24 folders. I don't get it! I already
moved
most of the files to a temporary folder, although there were never that
many
to begin with.

"Noel Paton" wrote:

How many files does a DIR of the root directory from DOS find??
I suspect that anything over about 70 may have problems - anything
over
about 85 certainly will have

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

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to
NG's
"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks, Ron!

Tried that already. Didn't work. Same as before, Setup went on to
scan
the
system registry...
...and it said "Cannot create a temporary directory. This may be
caused
by
too many files in the root directory"...and stopped!

Any thoughts on the idea of renaming the windows folder and tying to
install
a new one?


"Ron Badour" wrote:

I am not sure the LFN is the problem but a way around it is to
type:
setup.exe /is and this will bypass scandisk during
installation.

--
Regards


Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo



"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks for your input, Don!

Regrettably, it won't start into safe mode - I can only get into
the
machine
in DOS so I am unable to run SFC.

In order to reinstall the fonts, I followed the instructions on
support.microsoft.com article number 146904, using the extract
command
and
specifying win98_22.cab as the cabinet file.

The hard disk is nominally a 4Gig drive with 1,136MB free (since
I
stripped
out lots of junk files!)

How can I identify the offending LFN from within DOS? It had
ocurred
to
me
that renaming this might help.

Do you think that renaming the windows folder and trying to
reinstall a
new
one might work?

Thanks again for your thoughts! Much appreciated!!

"Don Phillipson" wrote:

"BenL" wrote in message
...
I have an old machine that had windows98. Recently, we had a
power
out
and
when I restarted the machine, it went through the usual blue
screen
"scan
for
errors" routine. Foolishly I eXited from this (as I often
did!)
but
I
subsequently received an error message (in DOS) that GDI.EXE
couldn't
load
and that I would have to reinstall windows. The PC then,
within a
fraction
of
a second, turned off.

This is normal. Power outages can easily corrupt
files that happen to be system files. If you can boot
into Safe Mode (via key F8 during boot process) you
may be able to identify damaged files and replace them
using SFC.EXE = System File Checker.

Having researched the on-line resources, I booted up into DOS
and
reinstalled the fonts in c:\windows\fonts from the copy of the
WIN98
disk
that I have on my c: drive. This did not solve the problem.

This appears normal.
(a) Only a couple of fonts are critical to normal Wiin98
startup.
(b) You did not mention how you reinstalled fonts in DOS
(which requires EXP and knowledge of the CAB files.)

Setup went through the scandisk routine and identified
a problem with a long filename that would need scandisk for
windows
to
resolve, but other than that, was OK. Setup then wento on to
scan
the
system
registry...
...and it said "Cannot create a temporary directory. This may
be
caused
by
too many files in the root directory"...and stopped!

So, I went to the root directory and stripped out all
unnecessary
files
and
folders and tried again, and again... Nothing that I have done
seems
to
have
made any difference.

1. It may be worth while identifying that particular LFN file
and renaming it so SCANDISK runs cleanly.
2. You did not mention drive space, empty space, etc: but
this is a clue to delete all unneeded and junk files (e.g.
Temp Internet Files) before you run SCANDISK and before
you reinstal.

If the foregoing would not allow you to reinstal Win98
your fastest solution may be to add a new hard drive
and either (a) instal it as C: so that your old C: becomes
D:, and then instal Windows on the new C:, or
(b) copy all old C: to new D:, then format C: and instal
afresh, after checking all steps listed in
http://home.satx.rr.com/badour/html/w98_restore.html

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

OK, Guys - we have progress!

with the /t switch as suggested, setup starts to copy the files needed for
windows setup, but then stops after telling me that it "Cannot open source
file: c:\win98\deltemp.com" I checked, the file really does not exist. It
then tells me that it "Cannot copy setup files to temporary directory" and
suggests that I "Run setup again without any options..." I tried this - back
to square 1.

....so, I copied deltemp.com from another machine, and copied extract.exe to
the win98 folder...

....and tried setup again, with the /t switch...

***SUCCESS!!!***

Thanks to each of you for your support and contributions! I truly am very
grateful!

BenL

"Noel Paton" wrote:

It specifies the temporary directory to which the Windows installer puts the
files during the install (I had to look it up, too!)

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

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks, Ben!

What does the "/t:" switch do? I am not familiar...

Ben

"Ben Myers" wrote:

Create a temporary directory manually using "md".

md c:\temp

Then run setup with the "/t:" switch.

setup /t:c:\temp

Ben

"BenL" wrote in message
...
I have an old machine that had windows98. Recently, we had a power out
and
when I restarted the machine, it went through the usual blue screen
"scan for
errors" routine. Foolishly I eXited from this (as I often did!) but I
subsequently received an error message (in DOS) that GDI.EXE couldn't
load
and that I would have to reinstall windows. The PC then, within a
fraction of
a second, turned off.

Having researched the on-line resources, I booted up into DOS and
reinstalled the fonts in c:\windows\fonts from the copy of the WIN98
disk
that I have on my c: drive. This did not solve the problem.

So, I thought, OK, let's reinstall windows from DOS, and I proceeded to
run
SETUP from the copy of the windows98 disk that I have on the c:drive.
(I have
lost the actual CD!). Setup went through the scandisk routine and
identified
a problem with a long filename that would need scandisk for windows to
resolve, but other than that, was OK. Setup then wento on to scan the
system
registry...
...and it said "Cannot create a temporary directory. This may be caused
by
too many files in the root directory"...and stopped!

So, I went to the root directory and stripped out all unnecessary files
and
folders and tried again, and again... Nothing that I have done seems to
have
made any difference.

Any ideas??

Great news, Ben! persistence pays off



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

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"BenL" wrote in message
...
OK, Guys - we have progress!

with the /t switch as suggested, setup starts to copy the files needed for
windows setup, but then stops after telling me that it "Cannot open source
file: c:\win98\deltemp.com" I checked, the file really does not exist. It
then tells me that it "Cannot copy setup files to temporary directory" and
suggests that I "Run setup again without any options..." I tried this -
back
to square 1.

...so, I copied deltemp.com from another machine, and copied extract.exe
to
the win98 folder...

...and tried setup again, with the /t switch...

***SUCCESS!!!***

Thanks to each of you for your support and contributions! I truly am very
grateful!

BenL

"Noel Paton" wrote:

It specifies the temporary directory to which the Windows installer puts
the
files during the install (I had to look it up, too!)

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

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

http://tinyurl.com/6oztj

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"BenL" wrote in message
...
Thanks, Ben!

What does the "/t:" switch do? I am not familiar...

Ben

"Ben Myers" wrote:

Create a temporary directory manually using "md".

md c:\temp

Then run setup with the "/t:" switch.

setup /t:c:\temp

Ben

"BenL" wrote in message
...
I have an old machine that had windows98. Recently, we had a power
out
and
when I restarted the machine, it went through the usual blue screen
"scan for
errors" routine. Foolishly I eXited from this (as I often did!) but
I
subsequently received an error message (in DOS) that GDI.EXE
couldn't
load
and that I would have to reinstall windows. The PC then, within a
fraction of
a second, turned off.

Having researched the on-line resources, I booted up into DOS and
reinstalled the fonts in c:\windows\fonts from the copy of the WIN98
disk
that I have on my c: drive. This did not solve the problem.

So, I thought, OK, let's reinstall windows from DOS, and I proceeded
to
run
SETUP from the copy of the windows98 disk that I have on the
c:drive.
(I have
lost the actual CD!). Setup went through the scandisk routine and
identified
a problem with a long filename that would need scandisk for windows
to
resolve, but other than that, was OK. Setup then wento on to scan
the
system
registry...
...and it said "Cannot create a temporary directory. This may be
caused
by
too many files in the root directory"...and stopped!

So, I went to the root directory and stripped out all unnecessary
files
and
folders and tried again, and again... Nothing that I have done seems
to
have
made any difference.

Any ideas??