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#1
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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? |
#2
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Incomplete startup of Me
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? |
#3
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Incomplete startup of Me
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? |
#5
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Incomplete startup of Me
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 |
#6
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Incomplete startup of Me
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. |
#7
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Incomplete startup of Me
I would still like to hear someone weight in on options 2 & 3 of scanReg.
What do they do?.....and on the concept of upgrading to XP. Thanks. "Mike M" wrote: 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. |
#8
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Incomplete startup of Me
To the best of memory (which isn't as good as it should be) Scanreg has no
options 2 or 3. Do you perhaps mean the options (four) presented when booting to DOS using a Win Me boot floppy? If so with or without CD support is I would have thought self explanatory, if you need to read from a CD then choose the option for CD support, if not then ignore it. and on the concept of upgrading to XP For which there are a multitude of XP newsgroups. The decision whether to upgrade or not depends on a multitude of factors most especially your hardware and to a lesser extent the software you use. There is an XP Upgrade Adviser that used to be available for download from Microsoft (it may have been withdrawn with the release of Vista but is included on all XP CDs) that should be able to help you determine whether you have any hardware or software that is unsupported in XP and if upgrading, rather than clean installing, that will need to be uninstalled before starting. This will include all AV applications, firewalls and CD/DVD mastering applications. You can reinstall them afterwards although some will need to be updated. -- Mike Maltby JNB wrote: I would still like to hear someone weight in on options 2 & 3 of scanReg. What do they do?.....and on the concept of upgrading to XP. Thanks. |
#9
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Incomplete startup of Me
There's not much else offer other than what Mike and I have already posted.
You are running out of options regarding getting your current WinMe system to restore and at least run again (albeit requiring further work), with scanreg /restore being the last tool in the box. Regarding options 2 & 3 of scanreg (probably not much use in this case) see :- "Changes to the Registry Checker Tool (Scanreg.exe) in Windows Me" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/273889/en-us And for Scanreg in general, see :- "Description of the Windows Registry Checker Tool (Scanreg.exe)" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183887/en-us As for upgrading to XP, you should address that issue to one of the XP groups. Personally, I would be inclined to concentrate on WinMe until you've got a good working system (re-install if necessary) - even if that only means that you proved the rest of your PC (hardware) is functioning properly, in readiness for a potential XP upgrade. For all we know at this time, you might well have a virus or malware, or worse still you *might* even have a failing HDD. Mart "JNB" wrote in message ... I would still like to hear someone weight in on options 2 & 3 of scanReg. What do they do?.....and on the concept of upgrading to XP. Thanks. "Mike M" wrote: 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. |
#10
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Incomplete startup of Me
Thanks guys for the suggestions....so I guess my approach will be to use the
scanreg /restore to get back to a very old registry, assuming Me boots then I'll use Sytem Restore and hopefully there is a much more recent checkpoint available. Before this though, will it be possible to backup my data files and other downloaded executables (esp updates) to CD? How? And then if this doesn't work, I'll use scanreg /restore to get back to where I was just yesterday and try the XP upgrade. Please comment one last time. "Mart" wrote: There's not much else offer other than what Mike and I have already posted. You are running out of options regarding getting your current WinMe system to restore and at least run again (albeit requiring further work), with scanreg /restore being the last tool in the box. Regarding options 2 & 3 of scanreg (probably not much use in this case) see :- "Changes to the Registry Checker Tool (Scanreg.exe) in Windows Me" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/273889/en-us And for Scanreg in general, see :- "Description of the Windows Registry Checker Tool (Scanreg.exe)" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183887/en-us As for upgrading to XP, you should address that issue to one of the XP groups. Personally, I would be inclined to concentrate on WinMe until you've got a good working system (re-install if necessary) - even if that only means that you proved the rest of your PC (hardware) is functioning properly, in readiness for a potential XP upgrade. For all we know at this time, you might well have a virus or malware, or worse still you *might* even have a failing HDD. Mart "JNB" wrote in message ... I would still like to hear someone weight in on options 2 & 3 of scanReg. What do they do?.....and on the concept of upgrading to XP. Thanks. "Mike M" wrote: 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. |
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