i was cleaning a friend's computer, and i guess i did something very bad... now his computer won't boot up at all. no matter what i do... bootup disk, safe mode, normal mode, it won't boot up. When i try to boot it up, it tells me command.com is corrupt or missing, and to enter the directory of the new one. i tried copying the command.com from my laptop to a disk and entering that directory, but it won't work. When i try booting up in safe mode, it tells me that some files are missing (can't remember name of them, they start with a v.) I need some help here. Any is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Files that start with V in terms of system files are virtual device drivers most of the time and are quite required to load Windows.
It sounds like a reinstall might be in order...much quicker than trying to repatch any missing or corrupt system files.
unfortunately, my friend can't find his windows 98 bootup disk. does anyone know where i could perhaps find a windows 98 recovery program?
I shouldn't of ran easy cleaner. gah, i made a mistake and searched for duplicate files... especially since the d: drive was a backup for windows (at least, that's what i think it is...)
barok, is the BIOS test successful? If it is, then just remove his hd. Put it in your PC as a slave. See whether you can access it. If you can, copy all the stuff into your own drive. Now format this drive and reinstall.
BTW You can easily create a bootdisk in Win98. Heres a howto:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/using...otdisk.asp
thanks people. yes, the bios test was successful. Maybe i should just do that, with the formatting and all. after all, his hd is only about 10 gigs big, and most of it is just mp3's.
I found that site on my laptop at his house. I successfully made a bootup disk, but it still wouldn't work... kept on telling me my command.com is missing or corrupt.
Basically, I did alot of thinking during the night. I came up with four options:
1. Two programs i found on the net claims they can fix the problem i'm having. They make bootup disks that claim to repair windows. First thing i'll do is try that.
2. A while ago i burned knoppix to a cd. I might try to boot up knoppix then try to fix windows from there.
3. try to find ANY windows 98 installation cd and reinstall windows.
4. Lastly, At my friend's house, we found two cd's that fix the computer... but they require a reformat of the hd. I want to save that for last.
Option four is the least appealing, but if I can successfully do what tbbq is telling me i can do, then it may be the best. But if only i could find my win98 installation cd (or his) then i'd just reinstall windows.
Uhh... sorry for a noobish question, but will reinstalling windows end up erasing the hd? I don't really think so, in fact, i'm almost completely positive it does not. But my friend is a bit paranoid on that fact.
Thanks again everyone.
If you just created a bootable diskette, booted with it and it found COMMAND.COM corrupted, the floppy disk drive may be faulty. Check that.
And about the question, it depends. Most Win 98 cds out there are "for brand new computers", so the installer only lets you install it to an empty HDD. But there's a trick, which involves you getting 98lite which lets you copy the Win 98 files to the HDD and patches the installer so you can install it without formatting.
You can also try and install Windows 2000 which you can install to any dir in any drive without having to format. You can even install several Windows 2000 in the same drive.
Which are the specs of this computer? If it has 128 Mb I would install Win 2K.
barok, the reason I am suggesting a clean sweep is because of the errors you are getting. If/When you're sucessfully able to boot up using a boot disk, try scandisk. The disk MIGHT have been damaged. I mean lost clusters or bad blocks might have developed as a result of the 'cleaning'. Did you discharge any static when you cleaned the comp? That could explain the corrupted files.
I think he meant software-style cleaning TBBQ. But if what you say happened, thats very plausible.
If the computer has two CD drives, one being a recordable drive (CDRW or DVDRW), then you can load up Knoppix and just backup the harddrive through there very easily, and then go about messing to fix it up. I would do this option as a first priority.
Try get some bootable floppies for DOS 6.22. You can access fdisk from those for reformatting and partitioning.
When you insert the bootable floppy, make sure the system is accessing the correct drive. That could be why command.com wasn't found. You might have to enter direct paths (with filename).
Can't think of much else. Knoppix is magic, you should be fine from there.