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Well, maybe not exactly. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it was me who killed it while trying to find a workaround to a hardware conflict created by WiTP.[;)] And hopefully it isn't actually dead, but that's what I'm here to find out about from one of you tech guys.

We have two machines. One satellite modem. One game of WiTP. Unfortunately the same machine has to take care of the game and the internet service. This makes my wife cranky, since the time when I am gaming is the time she would most like to be able to get on the net. This is the hardware conflict: two users wanting to use the same machine at the same time.

So I get a router, and a new ethernet card for the second machine. Got the router set up and the satellite plugged into it, that is all working for the good machine, the game machine, "my" machine. However, the ethernet card seems to have been the last straw for the second machine, the old machine, "her" machine.

Full disclosure: when I was installing the driver for the card, I got a message saying it did not find one of the files it was looking for. I told it to go ahead and finish installing the driver anyway, figuring hey, what's the worst thing that could happen, the card doesn't work, right?

Wrong. The machine now will not fully boot up. It gets past asking for my networking password, the desktop comes up, the hourglass is spinning, it's almost finished....

....then it reboots itself.[&:] It does this over and over and over....[>:]

So. How do I get back to where I was before? There are some files on the hard drive that I need to copy to a flash card, and after that I can start from scratch if I need to, wipe out everything and install some minimal things that my wife likes to use. Windows 98, Pentium II, 233 mHz (I think), 256 + 256 RAM.

Wife is being nice about it so far, but this could change.[;)] Any advice and or kind words would be much appreciated.

I'd go ahead and start from scratch. If you try to repair the installation as is, you'll most likely end up just digging a deeper hole for yourself.

Gotta get those data files copied first.

One way would be to purchase an inexpensive small hard drive and use it to put a new system install on it. Then you could go look at your old hard drive, get files and what not.

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Gotta get those data files copied first.

Well, yeah, obviously! [;)]

F8 key will let you safe boot without network drivers and you can gut out those bad ones.

Just what I was looking for, thanks Frag!

Was able to start up in safe mode and kill the problem devices. Got my document files copied to a flash stick (256 mb, smaller than a Bic lighter--wasn't so many years ago I remember being impressed by a hard drive that size).

Now, without taking this machine to Mos Isley and having its memory erased, how do I get rid of everything that is on this hard drive and start over? Is that even a good idea?

Umm, why start over? Just install the right driver and get on with life.

Reloading a machine from scratch and setting everything up once again is such a pain in the arse. [X(]

If it's toasted to that point ... I feel for you ... but from what you posted, it does not sound like a writeoff.

It's been squirrelly for some months; for example, I have not been able successfully to run ScanDisk or defrag for several months because there is something going on that keeps causing these programs to restart; they never finish running. Whatever this is does not show up in Task Manager, is not fixed by Registry Mechanic, and is not caused by something that SpyBot Search and Destroy can find. In the meantime performance gets worse and worse, and I'm about out of ideas.

Hmm, try this as an eval before giving up completely. If it can't defrag, you are toast for sure.

http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/

Would this work with Windows 98? Only mentions 2000 and XP....

...says 2000 or XP is minimum requirement.

I just found this in an article:

On some Windows 98 and ME systems, depending on what utilities you have installed, you may find that Disk Defragmenter keeps stopping and starting over, when you try to run it in normal boot mode. This is generally due to utilities or background programs that are changing the disk contents and messing it up. The key symptom is when the progress bar goes back to zero percent. If you have this problem, bottom line, I've found the easiest fix is to boot your computer to Windows safe mode, run the defragmenter in safe mode, and then switch back to normal boot.

Didn't know this was possible. I'll give it a try.

Oh, you are windows 98?

ignore ... doubt they have a 98 version.

Defragging in Safe Mode. Now at 97%, 4 hours later....[8|]

Actually that autoreboot mess sounded hauntingly familar... aka the "Blaster" worm. [X(] Sister got hit with that creature and took her almost a week to clean up the box. Otherwise I'd have to agree fully with Frag. Elminate everything before starting over. Saves on sanity too, because when the sanity levels start fraying its time to toss in the towel. Luck to ya. [8D]

1. Ensure you have the W98 install CD
2. Get all the data/information you want saved off the hard drive
3. Set your machine via the BIOS to boot from floppy and then from CDROM then HD
4. Get a bootable W98 disk from www.bootdisk.com
5. Check this disk to see if it has format.com and scandisk.exe on it; if it doesnt, find someone who has W98 and copy those onto that floppy. Make sure it is the same version of Windows (really, trust me)
6. Boot the machine from the floppy
7. At the C:> prompt type format c: ; it will ask you "Are you sure?" etc
8. After it formats the drive, run scansidk on the HD; scandisk c:
9. Take the floppy out, make sure the install disk is in the CDROM, reboot
10. If the Windows installer does not come up, reboot with the floppy and go to the CD drive and type setup

Hopefully this helps. Step by step stuff can be found here

http://www.windows98.windowsreinstall.com/

George

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Umm, why start over? Just install the right driver and get on with life.

Reloading a machine from scratch and setting everything up once again is such a pain in the arse. [X(]

He did say Windows 98. Starting over is just a part of life under Win98.

Look, I hate MicroSoft as much as the next guy, but your life will be better when you switch to XP.

If do a complete re-format and re-install, be sure have a firewall running before connecting to internet, you will need to right off patch up win98 with all security patchs to close holes and last I noted, the time before an bot scanning for vulnerable systems is at most 10 mins or even less and then your possiable going get auto hacked, worms dropped in etc through OS holes, unless have that firewall setup first...

Any fresh install of an OS is these days vulnerable till critical patchs applied..

The router has a firewall built in. Can't get past the original problem though. When the ethernet card is installed, the machine does not fully boot, but rather reboots over and over. With the card and the drivers removed, it runs fine. I have tried putting the card in three different slots with the same results each time. I spoke with a tekkie at the local computer clinic, he said based on the symptoms the mother board might possibly be bad. He also suggested trying a USB network port instead of the ethernet card. Does anyone have any experience with this? How does the speed compare with an NIC? Does Windows 98 even support this?

The router has a firewall built in. Can't get past the original problem though. When the ethernet card is installed, the machine does not fully boot, but rather reboots over and over. With the card and the drivers removed, it runs fine. I have tried putting the card in three different slots with the same results each time. I spoke with a tekkie at the local computer clinic, he said based on the symptoms the mother board might possibly be bad. He also suggested trying a USB network port instead of the ethernet card. Does anyone have any experience with this? How does the speed compare with an NIC? Does Windows 98 even support this?

Windows 98 doesn't, Windows 98 Second Edition does. (assuming your motherboard has functional USB - beware that systems built in that timeframe are pre USB 1.0 hardware standard).

I'm still betting drivers are no good or you have a conflict with existing stuff. What else you got in the box? Windows98 is not too bright when it comes to sorting out hardware conflicts and boards that old generally need to have things like serial and parallel ports set via jumpers. (ie: you may not have an IRQ available for the network card). These days, everything is managed by the motherboard and operating system so this having to set by hand concept doesn't really exist anymore.

I once had 200 machines go out the door with dual serial port cards ... they bought network cards from someone else and installed them ... everytime someone moved their mouse, the network dropped ... (nic on the same irq as serial 2).

If your machines bios supports it, disable parallel/serial/game ports and try it again.