Accessing corrupt drive to get programs?

[Mikendi]

My neighbor tried to install Norton internet security 2004 on her gateway2000 running an LX chipset in Win98se. It failed to load she called me and I performed the tasks that Symantic perscribed and the thing failed to boot. Now the registery is corrupt - this is aparently not an isolated case after talking with a few IT guys. Any way the drive is on the way out (3 yrs out of warranty). My question is this:

If I put another drive in it and load Win98 can set the old drive as slave and move files & programs from it to the new one before it goes belly up? Can I access them even though the registry is corrupt - not like I need to boot to the OS now. OR am I wasting my time which I don't have a lot of these days.

I told her months ago to buy a new machine, but OOOOOOOOH . . . NOOOOOOO . . . .


This is why I build guitars now instead of computer!!!!!!!

 

[tyanni]

Yes, you should be able to access it. Providing the drive is spinning up and can be seen by windows, you should have no problem using a second drive and pulling files from it. However, pulling programs from it will be problematic or impossible, as most programs will put files in the windows directory\other directories that you will be unable to find, not to mention registry entries. However, someone else here may be able to tell you how to fix the registry, if possible.

 

[Mikendi]

Thanks - I'm going to load the programs like Office she had for school work on the new drive. The old one spins up fine I'm just hoping I can pull files over to the new Office programs & save her email & stuff. It's the typical thing - 300 PII w/64mb ram and a drive that was jammed with crap & never defragged!!! Hopefully this lesson will makes that $499 Dell look pretty attractive to her and she won't hold on the the past anymore - LOL This is the last old system I'm going to work on - I hate being the bearer of bad news

 

[Mikendi]

Oh man - when I open the drive it shows me Command & the DOS icon - anyway to get it to get it to open and see if there is anything left in there but mush?