Help reinstalling ME. Major meltdown.

[Salvador]

Hi,

I went to start up my pc this morning and the graphics were all jumbled. I thought it was my hardware at first, but then couldn't figure out why WinME kept crashing on me.

For curiousity's sake, I put in another hdd and everything was perfect. So, it was my assumption that I had a software problem. I tried to go to system restore with ME and it keeps locking. I then tried to reinstall ME and it keep locking when I tell ME that I want to save my files. It starts to read them, gets finished and then when it is supposed to save my files, it locks and I have to reboot from floppy. I've done this 4 times now and it locks in the same place.

Now.. Is there any hope for saving my files now? Do I have to do a fresh install at this point? Is there anything else I can try?

I really can't do anything because I go to do something in ME and I get a blue screen.

This all started when I was comparing video cards. I'm trying to see if I'm getting fuzzy text on a new monitor because of the video card. I switched to the onboard video and then when I switched back, the display is all garbled. I did think it was the video card, but later realized that it wasn't.

Could swapping video cards really mess up ME? What can I do to fix this?

Thanks so much!

Sal

 

[corkyg]

You most likely have a virus. I recall one of them does scramble graphics files. That's a big clue.

 

[Salvador]

How would I get a virus if I have Norton enabled and updated? It wouldn't be the Sircam virus, would it? How do I go about fixing it if my OS is really unstable?

You know.. It seemed like a virus, but I find it horribly ironic that all this happened when I switched back from the onboard video to my video card. I think it's some kind of bug or ME simply did not like having the video card installed, while I was running my onboard video.

Sal

 

[grunjee]

I'll tell you this much... WinME is a buggy OS. Maybe this isn't what you want to hear, but it is the truth-- you're wasting your time with ME.

I've given ME several chances, but it keeps disappointing. Things will seem to be going great, then before I know it the whole OS craps out, and I have to do a new install.

If you want to save yourself a lot of time and frustration, stick with 98 and/or 2000 Pro.

I sure hope you don't have a virus. Good luck getting the thing figured out.

 

[Eltano1]

If you want to try to save your files before formating your HDD, look for a program call "Lost and Found" and see how much can you recover from the HDD.

Godd luck

Eltano

 

[FuManStan]

Geez, dont go recommending a new operating system out of the blue, when Me does work perfectly fine for lots of people.

 

[Salvador]

<< Geez, dont go recommending a new operating system out of the blue, when Me does work perfectly fine for lots of people. >>


Heh. It was working perfectly fine for me until this. I thought it would get buggy and give me a few BSOD's, but not something like this. I don't trust this OS any more and I will be using Win98 when I dual boot the drive. I also won't be putting any personal files on the same partition as a Win98/ME partition in case of another meltdown.

I say continue using ME until it totally craps out like it did on me. Take this advice though: Be very sure to keep all your stuff backed up on a regular basis. I was so lucky that I just did a major backup last week. There was no need to go in and try to save my files fortunately because of the recent back up. It's just going to be a little bit of a PITA to put everything back.

BTW.. I have an OS back up on this hdd and it's working fine. I don't see how it could've been a virus at this point. If it was on the odd chance, hopefully it died in the fdisk and formatting.

Sal