How do I save the girl next door's computer?

[brian_riendeau]

The girl that lives next door to me did a fine job of screwing up her computer trying to install IE 5 from a MSN 5.1 CD. Whenever she boots into Windows98, it loads up Norton AV it gives her an Explorer stack dump error. Booting into safe mode produces the same thing. She has some files on her HD she wants to keep but nothing critical. Also, she may have a virus so I am not willing to stick her HD into my machine to fix anything.

So far I have tried booting off the Win98 and reinstalling Windows98 on top of itself. That did not work, after the reinstall, she booted up to the same background, same custom cursor, and Norton AV even started, then the same Explorer stack dump happened again. I am at a loss for things to try, please help. Is there a way to install Windows98 off the CD and have it NOT keep any of the old files? Thanks.

 

[Cruisin1]

Yeah format the drive Just backup the files she wants to keep on disk or cd if she has a burner.

 

[BigToque]

you could just delete the \Windows directory.

you will lose her favorites (unless you back them up) and your personal windows settings, but nothing else. you'd just have to reinstall her programs that use the registry

 

[BigToque]

Or like Cruisin1 says... FORMAT

 

[AngelOfDeath]

Go for the deleting of windows...if that doesn't work. Then do a:

C:\>Format c: /q

AoD

 

[hans007]

maybe you can go into safe mode and uninstall it

 

[Homer]

brian, if you can boot into DOS you should be able to copy her precious (or not so precious) files to floppies or whatever. If not you should be able to boot from a floppy and do the same. Once you have the data she wants saved on another medium you should be able to virus scan them on your machine, and you should be able to do the ol' format c: to her hard drive and a clean install of the OS. This might be better than trying to salvage her present installation.

 

[brian_riendeau]

I am going to try deleting the C:\Windows directory and seeing what happens. She wants to save a lot of files on her drive but she does not really know where they are or what files she needs. Some are large as well and a floppy drive is her only backup device. If the C:\Windows trick works I am going to have her upload all the files she needs onto my computer (after virus scanning them all) and then format her HD and go from there with a clean install. Thanks for the help!

 

[Slapstick]

Before you reinstall Windows try editing the autoexec.bat from DOS and get rem out the line that starts Norton AV on startup. I've seen that cause sinular problems to the one you describe.

 

[Floyd]

You shouldn't need to reformat or anything drastic...Norton creates a backup of the registry when it installs. Just manually restore the files system.ns0 and user.ns0 (the last digit can be incremented if more than one Norton product has been installed, use the latest one) to their *.dat extensions in DOS and you should be back in business. Then do as Slapstick mentions and comment out any lines in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files (alternatively, Norton makes backups of those as well which you could simply rename).

[edit] Just re-read your post. If Norton AV has been installed for some time and is choking on the IE install, just use the "scanreg /restore" option from a DOS prompt and choose an appropriate registry backup. [/edit]

Best regards,
Floyd

 

[cavingjan]

Now would even be a good time to consider a hard drive upgrade if necessary. Reinstall windows on the new drive and hook the old one as a slave for a week or two to find all those files you thought you had but didn't. That's usually the way I try to work it. There's still a hot deal on a 20 Gig drive for $60.
Otherwise, I'd consider hooking it up to your system and running an antivirus and then transferring files.

 

[Whitedog]

Format seems to be the answer for 95% of the people on this forum. What version Norton's is it? 4.0 and earlier mixed with IE5 and 98 sometimes throws a fit.
I'd "completly" remove nortons and see what happens.

Man, if you want to mess things up, then Format her HD without knowing what files it is she "wants to keep but doesn't know where they are".

 

[vailr]

Outlook Express stores e-mail in C:\windows directory too.
NAV includes a DOS version for command-line function; can be run totally from A: drive if needed.
Just boot in Safe Mode, delete IE 5.0. Then get the IE 5.5 installer file and go with that.

 

[PowerJoe]

DON'T FORMAT!
(at least not yet...)

Is this some international version of Windows by any chance? If so, chances are IE replaced some DLL with a newer version that doesn't support that other language. It's probably comctl32.dll, and you just need to restore the original one:

- Boot from a Win98 diskette with CDROM support
- type: extract /A /L c:\windows\system D:\win98\catalog3.cab comctl32.dll
- confirm the overwrite
- Pray
- reboot from HD
If that doesn't work, try SHLWAPI.DLL too.


If you've decided that a fresh Win98 install is the only solution, you can still do it without deleting anything using this method, devised by, well, me.


-PJ

 

[Zucchini]

Well that and you can just shove that hd into your pc. Virus's don't mysteriously leap from drive to drive by themselves u know.. just don't run any exe files and install the drive as a slave Saves you ALOT of trouble. I'm sure you have antivirus software anyways, so you could do her another favor and scan her disk too

 

[Whitedog]

Right on Joe!

Formatting IS SUCK

For those of you who are "format" happy, think about it this way...
If you worked at a Car Garage and someone brought you their car that had an Engine problem, and the only advice you could give them was "It needs to be rebuilt", well, people will eventually quit listening to you.

Formatting is not "fixing" anything, it's starting over, and IS SUCK.

If you ever plan to one day do PC tech work for a living, you best get out of that mindset or you'll not hold a job long. (well, those that work for me don't )

 

[bauerbrazil]

Try this.

- Boot from a Win98 diskette with CDROM support
- Rename the folder c:\windows
- Reinstall Win98

 

[dmbsuperfan]

I did it that way,(reformatting) for a similar problem I had involving Norton and Windows, and it worked perfectly.

 

[Alphacowboy]

She must be cute huh? Good luck, the deleting her C:\windows directory should work. I've done that many a time to fix a customers PC when they do not want to lose files. Another thing you could try is this, use a extra HDD drive, set it up as a master, install windows, copy all the files she wants to keep from the old drive, format hers, copy the good drive back to hers. It takes some time but it works everytime!

 

[NOSOUP4U]

is she cute?

 

[Toro 45]

I notice several people recomend to delete the windows directory. If you do that do you need to be in safe mode & then is it just a matter of rebooting & windows reinstalls the directory?
Toro

 

[slicksilver]

if I were you i would have ghosted the whole drive to another partition and then formatted the primary partition and install win98...that way I dont think she will lose anything..

Raj

 

[Alphacowboy]

You still haven't answered the true question, Is she cute? Anyway, any progress on the system yet, do you have it fixed yet?

 

[opcenter]

Where is the $60 20GB hard drive deal from?

More on the topic of the thread, I do agree with the formatting... boot from the Win98 CD to do it, though... that way if there are any viruses (virii?) they can't infest your bootup device (since CD-rom's are read only of course).

 

[Alphacowboy]

Hey what the update, did you get it up and running? Whats the scoop?