Registry Error on Startup

[cbsmith]

Hi,

My dad just replaced his motherboard in his PC. It is an Asus P3V4X with an Coppermine 533MHz processor. He is runnign Windows 98SE.

He installed the motherboard and set the BIOS correctly. He then booted up in Safe Mode and removed all of the System Devices and hten rebooted normally.

It detected all of the motherboard devices and everything was fine. Then he rebooted and as soon as Windows starts up he gets a message saying there was an error in the registry. Please reboot and this will be corrected.

When he reboots it restores an old copy of the registry that was beofre the devices for the new motherboard were installed.

He has ranNorton Win Doctor and fixed all of the problems that it found. He has run Scandisk and defrag. The problem is still happening. He does not want to format and reinstall. Is there anything else that I can try?


Thanks in advance,

Chris

 

[Danlz]

You don't need to re-format in order to reinstall W98SE.

 

[cbsmith]

Yes, but if I install Windows 98SE over itself in the same directory, won't it use the same registry as the old one?

Are there any programs that I can downlaod to check the registry and maybe tell me what the errors are?

Thanks again,


Chris
+

 

[cbsmith]

Anyone?

 

[Need4Speed]

here is what i would do:

1. make a dir on c-drive called cabs
2. copy contents from win98 dir on the win98 cd to this new dir
3. run regedit
4. delete the hardware\enum string in the registry (this will clear all the devices from the device manager)
5. reboot
6. win98 will start detecting all the new devices...when it asks for 'inser win98 cd blah blah blah" point it to the cabs dir on c-drive
7. install other drivers

Done...

did i miss anything?

 

[Need4Speed]

what is the exact reg error?

if it continues try swapping the ram...reg errors are common with bad memory

 

[Danlz]

I'm not knock'n 3rd party registry cleaners, but the only time that I tried it out it crashed me hard. Reinstalling W98SE over itself should reset the registry for you. If your system is still flakey, you will have to remove the SYSTEM.1ST file on the root of the boot drive. This has your original registry info. It is a hidden file so you will need to change it's attributes with "ATTRIB C:\SYSTEM.1ST -r-s-h" then reinstall W98SE.

 

[cbsmith]

It doesn't say what the exact error is. It just says ther is an error in the Windows Registry. Reboot for the registry to be repaired. When it repairs it, it appears ot just be restoring an older copy of the registry from before the motherboard swap.

I will try deleting the ENUM key and see what happens.

I am pretty sure the RAM is okay. He has 640MB, 2x256MB + 1x128MB. He had the 128MB and 1 256MB beofre. The other 256MB is new to him, but it wokred fine in my PC, so I assume it is good.


Thanks for the help,

Chris