Incomplete startup of Me

My computer running Me will not finish booting up. It paints the box asking
for username and password, which I setup for different users, but does not
display the different valid usernames. When I close that box by clicking the
X, the music plays but it stops right there with a plain blue screen. I've
also tried booting in Safe Mode and it I get a grey screen with Safe Mode in
each corner. I assume that a file or 2 have become corrupted. How do I
recover? I have original Me CD, would reinstalling wipe out other
stuff.....would I need to reinstall everything? would I lose data? I've
also got an XP Upgrade disk. Is this original OS dependent, I think it was
used for 98 SE. Is there another solution that would keep me from having to
reinstall everything and not loose data files?

You don't say what you might have done to cause this - e.g. did it suddenly
'just happen' or were you doing some work to your computer immediately prior
to the problem occurring? You *might* just be in with a chance of restoring,
especially as you can't (completely) boot into either Normal or Safe modes.
Do NOT try to over-install (re-install over itself) - this will very likely
cause you far more problems than you already have.

Boot using the Windows Startup (floppy) Disk and choose 4) Minimal Boot.
At the A:\ prompt, type "scanreg /restore" (no quotes and note the space
between the g and /) then press Enter.
Follow the screen prompts and when asked, select the last 'good' date prior
to your problems, continuing with the instructions.

Don't forget to remove the floppy disk BEFORE you tell the machine to
reboot.

If that doesn't fix it then you may well have lost or damaged/corrupted
critical files and be left with no other option but to completely "Clean
Install". NB There are several possible solutions to recovering important
(personal?) data or files BEFORE you attempt a fresh installation - assuming
you have access to a second computer.

Mart


"JNB" wrote in message
...
My computer running Me will not finish booting up. It paints the box
asking
for username and password, which I setup for different users, but does not
display the different valid usernames. When I close that box by clicking
the
X, the music plays but it stops right there with a plain blue screen.
I've
also tried booting in Safe Mode and it I get a grey screen with Safe Mode
in
each corner. I assume that a file or 2 have become corrupted. How do I
recover? I have original Me CD, would reinstalling wipe out other
stuff.....would I need to reinstall everything? would I lose data? I've
also got an XP Upgrade disk. Is this original OS dependent, I think it
was
used for 98 SE. Is there another solution that would keep me from having
to
reinstall everything and not loose data files?

I had recently been forced to reinstall the newest version of my ISPs
dailer...People PC. It was up and running OK. The next day I was trying to
limit my exposure to unfriendly things that come with it with Spybot. I
powered down and could never get it to boot back up (see below). Another
clue may be that when I try a reguiar boot there is an error message that
comes up over the login box that says Validation Failed For
C:\windows\system\vsinit.dll Does this help diagnosis?
As you suggested, I tried the scanReg /restore and it ran, but the *.cab
files had dates a few years old. I know I have installed things like tax
software etc since those dates, so I did not try to use them. Within
scanReg, I did save a new .cab ...bit for now I'm still stuck and could use
some advice. Would the .cab of a few years ago would be OK? What about
upgrading to XP? I have the original OEM Me disk and an XP ungrade disk.
Also, when looking for the Me Startup floppy that I made when I first
installed it, I came across another Dell CD that looked like it had some
utilities on it....is anything there useful? And, while running the scanReg,
options 2 & 3 were to boot with a CD or boot without one. Would these
options look for good copies of the corrupted stuff? Thanks for you help so
far

"Mart" wrote:

You don't say what you might have done to cause this - e.g. did it suddenly
'just happen' or were you doing some work to your computer immediately prior
to the problem occurring? You *might* just be in with a chance of restoring,
especially as you can't (completely) boot into either Normal or Safe modes.
Do NOT try to over-install (re-install over itself) - this will very likely
cause you far more problems than you already have.

Boot using the Windows Startup (floppy) Disk and choose 4) Minimal Boot.
At the A:\ prompt, type "scanreg /restore" (no quotes and note the space
between the g and /) then press Enter.
Follow the screen prompts and when asked, select the last 'good' date prior
to your problems, continuing with the instructions.

Don't forget to remove the floppy disk BEFORE you tell the machine to
reboot.

If that doesn't fix it then you may well have lost or damaged/corrupted
critical files and be left with no other option but to completely "Clean
Install". NB There are several possible solutions to recovering important
(personal?) data or files BEFORE you attempt a fresh installation - assuming
you have access to a second computer.

Mart


"JNB" wrote in message
...
My computer running Me will not finish booting up. It paints the box
asking
for username and password, which I setup for different users, but does not
display the different valid usernames. When I close that box by clicking
the
X, the music plays but it stops right there with a plain blue screen.
I've
also tried booting in Safe Mode and it I get a grey screen with Safe Mode
in
each corner. I assume that a file or 2 have become corrupted. How do I
recover? I have original Me CD, would reinstalling wipe out other
stuff.....would I need to reinstall everything? would I lose data? I've
also got an XP Upgrade disk. Is this original OS dependent, I think it
was
used for 98 SE. Is there another solution that would keep me from having
to
reinstall everything and not loose data files?

Validation Failed For C:\windows\system\vsinit.dll

This is part of the Zone Alarm firewall.

I'll let Mart continue trying to help but am somewhat concerned that when
using scanreg you weren't offered a recent date. What worries me is that
this suggests that you may have chosen to remove the startup entry that
backs up the registry each day and so may have also disabled system
restore otherwise I would have said use scanreg /restore regardless of the
date and then run system restore and choose a recent checkpoint that
predates your problems. However if SR is not going to be available then
using an old copy of the registry could generate further problems.
--
Mike Maltby



JNB wrote:

I had recently been forced to reinstall the newest version of my ISPs
dailer...People PC. It was up and running OK. The next day I was
trying to limit my exposure to unfriendly things that come with it
with Spybot. I powered down and could never get it to boot back up
(see below). Another clue may be that when I try a reguiar boot
there is an error message that comes up over the login box that says
Validation Failed For C:\windows\system\vsinit.dll Does this help
diagnosis?
As you suggested, I tried the scanReg /restore and it ran, but the
*.cab files had dates a few years old. I know I have installed
things like tax software etc since those dates, so I did not try to
use them. Within scanReg, I did save a new .cab ...bit for now I'm
still stuck and could use some advice. Would the .cab of a few years
ago would be OK? What about upgrading to XP? I have the original
OEM Me disk and an XP ungrade disk. Also, when looking for the Me
Startup floppy that I made when I first installed it, I came across
another Dell CD that looked like it had some utilities on it....is
anything there useful? And, while running the scanReg, options 2 & 3
were to boot with a CD or boot without one. Would these options look
for good copies of the corrupted stuff? Thanks for you help so far

What started all this was when I tried to add new phone numbers to the list
that the dailer was using. That did something and I was able to use System
Restore successfully then...probably about a week ago. And I'm sure that
I've used System Restore several other times since the date of the .cab
files. Anyway, the PC seemed to work fine except that the dailer was screwed
up so I contacted People PC and they told me to load the new one. I guess I
could try getting a new vsinint.dll.

"Mike M" wrote:

Validation Failed For C:\windows\system\vsinit.dll

This is part of the Zone Alarm firewall.

I'll let Mart continue trying to help but am somewhat concerned that when
using scanreg you weren't offered a recent date. What worries me is that
this suggests that you may have chosen to remove the startup entry that
backs up the registry each day and so may have also disabled system
restore otherwise I would have said use scanreg /restore regardless of the
date and then run system restore and choose a recent checkpoint that
predates your problems. However if SR is not going to be available then
using an old copy of the registry could generate further problems.
--
Mike Maltby



JNB wrote:

I had recently been forced to reinstall the newest version of my ISPs
dailer...People PC. It was up and running OK. The next day I was
trying to limit my exposure to unfriendly things that come with it
with Spybot. I powered down and could never get it to boot back up
(see below). Another clue may be that when I try a reguiar boot
there is an error message that comes up over the login box that says
Validation Failed For C:\windows\system\vsinit.dll Does this help
diagnosis?
As you suggested, I tried the scanReg /restore and it ran, but the
*.cab files had dates a few years old. I know I have installed
things like tax software etc since those dates, so I did not try to
use them. Within scanReg, I did save a new .cab ...bit for now I'm
still stuck and could use some advice. Would the .cab of a few years
ago would be OK? What about upgrading to XP? I have the original
OEM Me disk and an XP ungrade disk. Also, when looking for the Me
Startup floppy that I made when I first installed it, I came across
another Dell CD that looked like it had some utilities on it....is
anything there useful? And, while running the scanReg, options 2 & 3
were to boot with a CD or boot without one. Would these options look
for good copies of the corrupted stuff? Thanks for you help so far

If you think system restore is OK then there is no real harm in restoring
an older copy of the registry using scanreg /restore and then running
system restore as SR will replace the old restored version of the registry
with a copy made at the time the system restore checkpoint was created.
--
Mike Maltby



JNB wrote:

What started all this was when I tried to add new phone numbers to
the list that the dailer was using. That did something and I was
able to use System Restore successfully then...probably about a week
ago. And I'm sure that I've used System Restore several other times
since the date of the .cab files. Anyway, the PC seemed to work fine
except that the dailer was screwed up so I contacted People PC and
they told me to load the new one. I guess I could try getting a new
vsinint.dll.