Windows missing mfc42.dll & comctl32.dll

[hockman5]

My friend has a Win98 System (ACER), and he was loading office2000, which did not take.
Shortly after this failed install, the system froze and he had to reboot. When he went to reboot, windows only showed the backgroud desktop picture with an error message stating that mfc42.dll was missing or corrupt, then another that says comctl32.dll was missing or corrupt. So i went to help him. I cannot boot from the floppy drive, and i cannot get into the bios to change the boot order. (there is no message about hitting "del" to enter setup.
So i booted in windows command prompt only (holding down CTRL), and copied the files from my pc to his via floppy. Still get the same message. How can i get his system to boot from the win98 setup disk, or any bootable disk (i tried a few).

[jmorrell]

If he has a version of Windows 98 that comes with a new PC, vice an upgrade version), you can boot from the CD if the BIOS is set to boot from a CD. If you only have an upgrade version of Windows 98, you need to have a bootable floppy with the correct CDROM drivers on it. If an emergency boot floppy was created on a Windows 98 machine, it should work on your friend's machine. That disk contains the CDROM drivers required for most any ATAPI or SCSI CDROM drive. Once you get teh machine booted up with CDROM support enabled, just run Windows 98 setup again.

[hockman5]

once again, my problem is the PC will not boot from a: (floppy). I thought maybe the bios was set to boot from c: (hard drive) first, and i am unable to get into bios setup to find out. However, if you have a non-bootable floppy in the drive at startup, you get an "invalid media, insert bootable disk" message. However, if you have a bootable floppy in the drive ( i have tried win98 setup floppy, win95 bootable floppy, and dos bootable floppy), the system hangs there, doing nothing. if you hit enter you see the floppy lightup but nothing else. I am able to boot into win98 setup mode and run command prompt only mode. and am also able to copy files from floppy to hard drive, so i dont think it is a floppy drive error...any other ideas??

[Ed_S]

There's several methods that might get you into setup, some work during boot sequence & others after it's booted to dos.
The last Acer I worked on used :
<ctrl><alt><esc> combo, but others I've seen are
<ctrl><alt><s>
<ctrl><alt><F1>
<shift><F1>
and of course <delete> when message appears

Certainly there are others, these are all I remember right now. Just boot to DOS & experiment a little, you'll find it.

Or maybe check Acer's website with model & serial # in hand?

[Axel]

I'm surprised that on-one has mentioned you might have a boot sector or similar type virus on that system. There are also virus' out there that will flash your BIOS and "adjust" your system just as you've described.

You might benefit by poping the BIOS battery out, hopefully resetting the BIOS to default in which case you might be able to get into it to reset it for the hard drives and boot order.

Only problem is, you might also end up reinstalling everything and losing what you've got, but if you've picked up a virus, that might not be a bad thing. I'm aware that Norton will allow you to make a start-up disk with boot sector virus scan on it to check for something like that, but it's been a while since I've had to do that myself.

Then again, you might have some type of other hardware failure, like a bad floppy drive or a floppy cable which needs reseating on the mother board.



[This message has been edited by Axel (edited 10-26-1999).]

[MrEd]

Does your friend still have the CPR disk that came with his computer? If so, just boot to command prompt, insert the CD, then <Ctrl> <alt> <del>. It will come up with an options screen, and click on "Restore Operating System" or a similar command. Use that one, not the one that suggests restoring all files to the HD. I had a similar problem with an Acer, and that was the fix.

-MrEd
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