Need to reload Windows
Elliot
I have a rather severe problem. I need to reload Windows
ME or reformat my entire computer, thereby returning it
to it's orginal factory state.
I have all of the CD ROMS and even my last Emergency Boot
Disk from 2001.
The problem is that many years ago my default CD-ROM
Drive designated "Drive Q" by the manufacturer lost it's
registry entry or path by using the Norton System Works
clean-up option.
The computer's BIOS sees the drive!!! I have returned
the returned the BIOS back to it's original state and
then brought the BIOS back to today. In both cases, the
drive is recognized ... but there is no path ... and the
drive cannot see an inserted CD, even though the drive
physically checks for one.
I have even opened the computer and disconnected the
drive from the motherboard, rebooted, waited a month, and
then reinstalled the drive in the hope that the computer
will sense that there is a new device or hardware
installed, but it does not.
It's only an old bedroom computer, but aside from that it
works perfectly (although it is slow by today's
standards, 150Mhz clock speed). It was orginally a
Windows 95 computer but surprisingly works just fine on
Windows ME, and on the Internet.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get the
CD ROM Drive path reinstalled???
The computer manufacturer, Packard-Bell no longer exists,
so I can't call them.
Thank you in advance for any advice you can give.
Elliot
Jerry
has CD ROM drivers on it. If it is seen in the BIOS then it should be
'picked' up by CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT on the floppy and a drive letter
will be assigned. Then you can install ME from the CD.
Do you not have an ME Safety Boot Floppy? The files are on it.
If not go to www.bootdisk.com and get the necessary files for the operating
system in use.
"Elliot" <anon...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:19a301c4a710$30bb19a0$a401...@phx.gbl...
Jerry
I said to boot into real-mode DOS and load the drivers from there. Nothing
about being in Windows; therefor nothing being affected by any other
software.
"Elliot" <anon...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:034501c4a73c$63e2c9a0$a501...@phx.gbl...
> Hi Jerry,
>
> Yes, I have done all of that I'm afraid. The drive is
> definitely seen but the drive can't see that a CD is
> inside. It tries, and tries, and tries, and then
> says, "No CD in drive ... place CD in drive."
>
> Yet the Windows ME disk (or any other disk for that
> matter) is invisible to the drive.
>
> That is why I am relatively certain that the shortcut
> path was destroyed by Norton System Works. When I
> deleted that shortcut several years ago, I thought that
> it was only the shortcut to the last file accessed on the
> CD ROM drive as NSW stated to me, but instead it turned
> out to be the entire path to the drive.
>
> That is why I disconnected the drive in order to fool it
> into reinstalling itself, but that didn't work either.
>
> Thanks for the response though. :-)
>
> Elliot
>>.
>>
Elliot
I believe that the problem lies within Config.sys and the
Autoexec.bat because I had renamed the drives in order to
try to get them to work again. Since you mentioned both
of those files, it would seem to me that I will have to
edit them both back to read the original "Q" drive (as is
the default in the BIOS).
I suppose that I have nothing to lose by trying that
since all of my CD read disk attempts have failed trying
all other methods.
Elliot
>.
>
Noel Paton
Booting to DOS completely ignores any drive allocation that you may have
made in Windows - and the BIOS does not assign drive letters (that's the job
of the OS)
Your CD drive in DOS will be 2 higher than the number of DOS-visible
partitions on your HD's.
ALL DOS-visible HD partitions are assigned consecutive drive letters,
starting with C: - so if you have two such, they will be assigned C; and D:
The RAMDisk will then be assigned the next letter (E: in this case)
and then the CD-drives will be assigned letters (F: ...)
--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2005, Windows)
Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
http://tinyurl.com/6oztj
Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
"Elliot" <anon...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:218501c4a90d$418bda90$a301...@phx.gbl...
Crazy Aizy
> Hi Jerry,
>
> I believe that the problem lies within Config.sys and the
> Autoexec.bat because I had renamed the drives in order to
> try to get them to work again. Since you mentioned both
> of those files, it would seem to me that I will have to
> edit them both back to read the original "Q" drive (as is
> the default in the BIOS).
>
> I suppose that I have nothing to lose by trying that
> since all of my CD read disk attempts have failed trying
> all other methods.
>
> Elliot
>
Have you actually tried what Jerry has suggested? Boot with your ME startup
disk and choose 'with CD-ROM support'? Note that the CD-ROM becomes drive
'E'. You should not have to edit the contents of Autoexec.bat and config.sys
on the boot floppy! If the drive still fails to read a CD from the 'E'
prompt or comes up with error messages, I would suspect that the drive
itself might be faulty.
Steve
Elliot
Yes, Steve I have tried what Jerry recommended. My
system tells me that it is creating a virtual RAM
drive "E", and then names my CD ROM drive "F". Once the
virtual drive is created and the CD drive desigination is
created, the system boots into DOS and leaves me in
floppy disk drive "A."
If I attempt to change directories into "F", the system
does so for about 1 second and changes back to "A".
And to make matters worse, I have another drive (an
external CD-Writer Plus, connected to the parallel port)
that will not operate either. So I know that the problem
is not in the hardware. That one lights-up, tries to
read the CD and then does nothing.
Thanks.
Elliot
>.
>
Crazy Aizy
> Hi Guys,
>
> Yes, Steve I have tried what Jerry recommended. My
> system tells me that it is creating a virtual RAM
> drive "E", and then names my CD ROM drive "F". Once the
> virtual drive is created and the CD drive desigination is
> created, the system boots into DOS and leaves me in
> floppy disk drive "A."
>
> If I attempt to change directories into "F", the system
> does so for about 1 second and changes back to "A".
>
> And to make matters worse, I have another drive (an
> external CD-Writer Plus, connected to the parallel port)
> that will not operate either. So I know that the problem
> is not in the hardware. That one lights-up, tries to
> read the CD and then does nothing.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Elliot
>
I'm wondering why it's designated 'F'. Do you have more than one hard disk?
The external CD-writer probably won't be recognised in DOS so I'm not
surprised that it does nothing. The activity light just means it's detected
a disk in the drive. Do you get any error message when you change from 'A'
to 'F' prompt? If the drive was not present you'd get 'Invalid drive
specification' error. I'm puzzled as to why it jumps back to 'A' with
apparently no error message. I assume you are using the correct syntax to
change drives - i.e. at the A prompt, type F:<enter> (that's the drive
letter and a colon)
Steve
Elliot
You know, all I can say is that you guys and all of the
people here are pretty much computer genius'. LOL.
I am reloading Windows M.E. now on Drive "F". ----->
YES, Steve that is exactly the situation. I have a hard
drive "C" and a hard drive "D" assigned before the two CD
ROM drives.
I am not sure why the Emergency Disk was creating a RAM
drive "E" and then creating a physical drive "F", but
here is what I finally did. I reloaded an Emergency Disk
from Norton (which I knew would not work because I
deleted Norton System Works from that computer over 3
years ago.)
Low and behold it designated the non-working CD ROM
drive "E", just as you stated it should. ... But the
drive still could not read my Windows CD.
I then in disgust, placed the REAL Windows CD Emergency
boot disk in on top of the new designation by rebooting
with that disk! LOL. It renamed the drive "F" and son-
of-a-gun it remained "F" and read the Windows M.E. CD. I
typed "setup.exe" and there it went!
Unfortunately I decided to save my old Windows files as
backup ... I probably shouldn't have since I needed the
space, but Windows M.E. is installing! It should be done
in another 2 hours (LOL) because so far it has a
decreased remaining time of 10 minutes after running for
30, but it is working and I have already created a new
Emergency Disk as of today (10/4/2004).
So all of your questions really tweaked me into trying
about 3 different DOS environments and two of them
combined changed the properties enough to re-install
Windows ME.
Hopefully my CD ROM drive will still be able to read
after Windows is installed and successfully rebooted.
We shall see ... I am now in a waiting mode.
Thank you for all of your help to this point. Hopefully
the outcome will be a positive one. I will let you all
know! :-)
Elliot
>.
>
Crazy Aizy
Good to know you got there in the end. Hope the reinstall goes without
further incident!
Steve
Elliot
Protection Error" for VERX.DLL and the installation was
terminated by Windows install.
I am trying again, but this is a 7-year-old Windows '95
computer (150-mHZ clock speed) and it just might be ready
to be scrapped. :-(
Elliot
>.
>
Mike M
reinstalled over itself where the original system had an early version of
WMP9 installed. What follows should hopefully help. Since you say the PC
has only a 150MHz processor I am a bit surprised that WMP9 was installed.
SUWIN (VERX.DLL) error:
You appear to be attempting to reinstall Win Me over a system where a beta
or early version of Windows Media Player 9 had previously been installed
without having first removed it - not easy I know. Boot to DOS using a
floppy and delete or rename the file WMPLOC.DLL in the windows\system
folder and then try reinstalling Win Me. This should work and now allow
you to reinstall Win Me although you may later have some problems with
WMP.
It is also possible that you had installed IE6 and this also needs to be
uninstalled before (re-)installing Win Me. If this is the case you might
want to have a look at MS KB 312451 - "How to Remove Internet Explorer 6
by Reinstalling Windows" (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=312451) and
also KB 293907 - "How to Uninstall Internet Explorer 6"
(http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=293907).
Note also that reinstalling Win Me over itself using the Win Me CD causes
the original versions of many files to be reinstalled. I would therefore
strongly recommend that following reinstalling Win Me that you to download
and use the Belarc Advisor (http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html)
which will help you in identifying which critical updates and other
patches need to be reinstalled.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mcma...@hotmail.com
Crazy Aizy
"Mike M" <No_Spam@Corned_Beef.Only> wrote in message
news:ec9qiKi...@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
If you've got nothing vitally important on your C drive or have already
backed up stuff, it might be simpler to do a FORMAT C and do a clean install
of ME, followed by a lengthy session on Windows Update!
Steve