I read some post here lately...seems there are those who think the only way to fix windows is to format the hard drive...I'll take this as a sign of inexperience and to help those gain experience, I will repost an old article I have shuffled around for a while.
I do not reformat very often, unless I am building new PC's or swapping out hard drives or parts requiring it.
Here are a few simple steps to take so you won't have to endure the loss of a drives data either, and print this so you have it!
1. Make a good boot disk, but do not make it from the control panels add/remove programs startup disk applet!
Start with a good quality brand floppy, right click the floppy drive letter from windows explorer and select format with system files option checked, then format the new floppy. This will create a basic "Bootable" floppy disk.
Now you only need basic stuff added, config.sys with a device=himem.sys line (only that line, unless you want to add cd drivers) and copy the files: HIMEM.SYS, EDIT.COM, DELTREE.EXE, ATTRIB.EXE, MSCDEX.EXE, SYS.COM, SMARTDRV.EXE and SCANDISK.EXE to the floppy. Most of these files are loacted in the "Windows/Command" directory, but using Windows file search will find them easily.
Also copy your cdrom driver file to it.
2. CONFIG.SYS Here is my Config.SYS file contents exactly as they appear in "CONFIG.SYS":
Thats it, nothing else is needed in "CONFIG.SYS". [you may have a different cdrom device driver, this one (MTMCDAI.SYS) is from Mitsumi recordable drives].
3. AUTOEXEC.BAT, this needs to be simple as well, all you need is nothing, but I use the cd driver and smartdrive lines. Here is the whole AUTOEXEC.BAT content:
This loads the cd drivers andruns smartdrive for disk caching ( The smart drive utility improves DOS read/write speed).
4. This is the good part!
First, if your Windows is non functional, do this:
a. Boot with the custom disk
b. type " c: " this puts you into the root of the c drive.
c. type " REN WINDOWS WINOLD " this renames windows so the install will use the name Windows again.
d. type " ATTRIB +H +R WINOLD " this sets the hidden read only attrubute to the old windows directory so that the new install of Windows wont try to migrate to it.
e. {OPTIONAL STEP} type " DELTREE /y PROGRA~1.* " this deletes the program files directory (which is where a lot of bad software code may be located)
f. type " DELTREE /Y WINI*.* " this deletes any left over windows install files.
g. type "DELTREE /y WIN386.SWP to remove the swap file ( sometimes windows locates this on the C:\ root directory)
h. Do the new installation of windows and import your mail and address book info from your old windows directory when done, so you dont lose your stuff. You can also copy over your desktop folder from the old directory to the new windows directory to restore your icons.
Reinstall only those programs that will not work at this point as most software will still work from the executibles or shortcuts, remember, the less you install, the happier windows is!
Now delete the WINOLD directory... ALL DONE!
In conclusion.... I also do a few more things to make the next windows recovery easier:
1. Once I get my Windows install up with all the device drivers loaded, I make a new folder on the " C:\ " drive and call it " WINBACK "
2. I open Windows explorer, click on "VIEW" select folder options, click on show all files and unclick hide file extensions for known types in the view tab.
3. I open the "WINDOWS" folder and select all items (except for win386.swp ! you can't copy this, and you dont need to either, as it is better for Windows to rebuild a fresh non-fragmented swap file ). Then I right click the whole selection of items and select " copy ", I paste it to the new " WINBACK " folder.
This makes a good back up copy of a fresh windows installation.
4. If I ever have any problems after this, I boot from the boot disk, type " c: " to get to the " c: " root drive again, then type " REN WINDOWS WINOLD " and press enter, then type " REN WINBACK WINDOWS ", press enter and reboot to a fresh windows installation in less than 5 minutes, with all drivers loaded and working!
Now...go out and be fruitful!
BBA
[This message has been edited by BBA (edited 06-04-2000).]
jman01pa
06-04-2000, 04:12 PM
Call me sadistic if you must but the sound of the word format gets me all excited. A fresh install is so clean and pure. Nothing better. Well almost. Especially if you have brand new updated drivers. Hehe!
Realistic now. Your procedure is probablly a life saver and a neat trick. I had formatted twice in the last wo years. Once for win98se and the other this morning for Win2000. I didnt have to in either case. I just prefer a clean install.
Oh yea I forgot all the customers machines I have formatted. We wont take count. Since by the time I get the machine its already been wasted. However I do give the customer the option. Format or fix? At 40.00 an hour I usually format. Especially if I dont have to research drivers. From technicians frame of mind I would rather troubleshoot and fix. There is much satisfaction in that.
For the record! Because of how you titled this I thought it was gonna be another b**ch session on closing posts or people not like others because....
J http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
[This message has been edited by jman01pa (edited 06-04-2000).]
socalgal
06-04-2000, 05:20 PM
It was good the first time you posted it, and it's still good.
I have had this printed and filed for some time now..you had a web page with it at one time and I printed it from there..
Thanks
ctaylor
06-04-2000, 06:06 PM
AWESOME STUFF
BBA, this is the first time I have read your suggestions and am very impressed. I have tried to diagnose and rebuild AFTER THE FACT. Often this would lead to many other problems, leaving me at the point where I get fed up and reinstall Windows over the top of itself. When this fails I then have reverted to a lousy formatting fix.
These suggestions should make my life much easier. (If only I had a fix as nice for the good old reliable SPOOL32.DLL problem.)
ctaylor
BBA
06-04-2000, 07:48 PM
Hehehe....
I did make it look like I had a beef with someone didn't I?
You'll never know who...LMAO...ROTFL
Ok...this post description should not have been that poorly worded...I apologize.
Please, if it helps anyone who reads this...I'll be happy!
Richard_Cranium72
06-04-2000, 07:56 PM
Sire BBA, Old Honored One,, We are not worthy of your presence. We raise our hands to the air and bow to the earth, trembling from the sheer magnitude of your legendary and most brilliant aurora,, if the Honorable Socal and the Honorable Claytor fall behumbled at your castle's moat, please allow me to stand in your dung pit.. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif nuf drivel.. KEWL POST, NO, That was a great post http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif ! Also please reiterate the one,, "regfix" or whatever it is, the magic command to repair.. DrVette
[This message has been edited by Richard_Cranium72 (edited 06-05-2000).]
qball
06-05-2000, 02:43 PM
Sheez,
First MaximumPC took all the headache out of multi booting OSs, now you want to solve all of the huddled masses Windows problems. I don't feel so smart anymore, lol.
I had also noticed many are quick to pull the plug and start over, which is not a great solution.
I have had/used probably 35-50 winders boxes in my life and only once did I have to do the format/re-install dance. I thought I might have to do it again last week with the 98 box and $5 modem, but even then vigilance (and the fact that I was resigned to re-installing) I was able try some things that ultimately got 98 back.
Great post and people like you make this sight worthwhile.
BBA
06-05-2000, 09:41 PM
Richard...your tripping dood http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif
Thats too funny...thanks!
Oh...I think you are referring to the dos command to re-establish a saved registry configuration in W98...I have to think about that again, but if you boot to a command propmt and type regscan /? it will give all the options ( Or wuz that scanreg /?...oh wellone of them )
jad1097
06-05-2000, 10:27 PM
qball
MaximumPC took all the headache out of multi booting OSs
They got a way to boot Win 9X, W2k, Linux and BEOS all with one boot manager and no flopies?
thekingofpain
06-06-2000, 12:34 AM
Only took me 50 tries with MAJOR intrepidation to flash a bios, heck, this is simple? (just kidding) BUT---why cant I understand things that are so understandable to others???--- maybe? thats a Q for "another" forum... maybe? that wack to the head a few years back had more "effect" than I originally thought...
BBA
06-06-2000, 04:33 AM
The simplicaty is that you can print the procedure and use it...without having to understand it, but it is explained also.
Understanding comes with familiarity...the more you use it, the more you learn what it does.
ctaylor
06-06-2000, 07:37 AM
QBALL - I missed MaximumPC's post about multibooting. Dou you have the msg board URL for it?
RichardCranium72 - I think you underestimate my inabilities. *NUDGE* Entertaining post though as it brought a smile to my face.
Richard_Cranium72
06-06-2000, 08:45 AM
"If the Honorable Socal and the Honorable Claytor fall behumbled at your castle's moat, please allow me to stand in your dung pit" http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif CTaylor, maybe I wasn't clear, but I was trying to compliment you and the others. Many members, including, but not limited to Target, Nathan, Socal, BBA etc are so educated in this realm that I am truly humbled at the combined experience. When I first saw some posts from the CTaylor, I almost e-mailed you to comment on the proficient and articulate explanation that you produced, unlike my poor excuses by my copy and paste routine. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gifDrVette
Axel
06-06-2000, 09:48 AM
BBA - In my experience in call centers - the people sitting between the seat & the keyboard have this illusion that they know what they are doing when they try to hide botched installs , image files, games, etc. etc. from me -
They think "uninstall" means go into explorer and erase a file - They've never heard of scandisk, defrag, or antivirus... The ones who find the control panel are even more potentially dangerous...
It isn't that you can't recover a wrecked install of windows - it's just in an effort to save my sanity and precious time that it's easier to format the sucker and start fresh as is mentioned by a few others above....
The problem isn't typically the computer - but the organic peripheral device between the seat and the keyboard.....
ctaylor
06-06-2000, 10:12 AM
RICHARD_CRANIUM 72:
no problem. *S* I understood the compliement and appreciate it. perhaps I will allow you to stand in my dung pile some day *CHUCKLE*
qball
06-06-2000, 02:30 PM
Hey, hey, hey!
For those interested in quad booting, last months MaximumPC has an excellent article for Win98-Win2K-Linux-BEOS quad boot machines.
awesome stuff to know.......thanks..excellent tip to troubleshoot!
Axel
06-09-2000, 01:28 PM
wait -wait - don't tell me - your dad bought a TR-6 in a junk yard 27 years ago and is still restoring it - that's the type of people who have children who consider quad boots - can you say conflict nightmare from hell?????? - go buy a used machine!!! - one or two OS at a time please......
[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 06-09-2000).]
GlobalNameSpace
06-09-2000, 02:41 PM
Yea I thought about getting another machine, but I got 30GB's of space. so Why not?
Don't be so tough Axel just cause you don't like your food to touch.
Richard_Cranium72
08-20-2000, 05:22 PM
Axel, you must be a mechanic-type to illustrate with a British-Leyland car.
Only one of US would know the horror stories from Triumph, like on a Spitfire how you have to take the seats and floor out to change the clutch, but 8 hrs. And how the input shafts are all different sizes. OH What Fun..
I know this thread is a little old, but a good one nontheless.
After 7 YEARS of Blood, Sweat & Tears (good Band), THAT was the method I came up with! Why didn't you email me that back in 1993!
P.S. What's "format"????
Warthog
08-20-2000, 09:23 PM
only way to fix windows is to format the hard drive...I'll take this as a sign of inexperience
Yeah that's usually true.
I had called Dell about a minor driver problem a few days ago. He told me that I might have to reformat. That's bull. Finally, we arrived at the solution. Stupid techie.
BTW, it was easy to fix too. I had just screwed up installing the drivers for my video card (first time).
Warthog
dos7
08-21-2000, 04:30 AM
i've got a two year old install of win98, installed it the day we received the win98 cd's at our isp, i've had just about every conceivable piece of software/hardware on this machine, it's a 233mmx 2gHDD,i430vx,48mbRam,award bios--- i've run a few shop vac regs on it,,still boots up in about 40-50 seconds, oh yeah,,and my western digital caviar drive has had one bad cluster on it for about two years,
i wouldn't dream or reformatting, for one because i would personally like to see how far it will go, and also,,im afraid that if i do reformat, that the drive will fail...
i keep a meticulously tidy machine,,that's why i have never had to reformat,,there are reasons to reformat a computer, i just haven't encountered any on my own machine,,now other peoples machines are a different story ,,hahaha,,,,im a techie,and i hope no one has ever called me a stupid techie though,
anyway,,
some people like to reformat their drives, and usually, whether someone likes that or not, it isn't a good indicator if they are skilled or not. It just means they like to format their drives for the "clean fresh booted feeling" or whatever,
but resorting to reformatting whenever a problem arises does indicate an inability to perform good pc trouble shooting.
dos7
flashngcurser
08-22-2000, 09:26 AM
Morris Garage- much more stable!!!
Except for the Lucus (prince of darkness) power supply.
Hmmmmm, ramble ramble ramble
bobcat
08-22-2000, 10:38 AM
I take snap shots of my OS partition and restore them when needed. For clean install, restore a baseline image.
daveleau
04-26-2001, 04:27 PM
Going through my bookmarks and found this gem and thought I'd bring it back...
Thanks BBA
Dave
ragtop
04-26-2001, 05:36 PM
Hey daveleau - Thanks for bringing this one back. God knows I coulda' used this info a couple times in the past 6 months!!
BFlurie
04-26-2001, 06:48 PM
[automatic bump-mode]BUMP[/automatic bump-mode]
TOAD6147
06-13-2001, 06:01 AM
Bump this one to the top again 'cause it's good but it seems we need to update the method of creating the bootable floppy as Win Me doesn't format floopies with system files. Hence, no more automatically created bootable floppies. So, BBA, if you could document a work around for that the newbies and the not-so-adept would get a big boost from it. TIA
PS I'm not a newbie so I guess I'm one of those other dudes. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
radbasa
06-13-2001, 08:46 AM
Yeah WinMe doesn't give you the option to format bootable floppies.
What I do is let Windows create a Startup Floppy using the Add/Remove Programs mini-app of Control Panel. Then delete everything on that floppy except for the boot essentials. If I remember correctly for WinMe these would be IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM. Then I do the rest of BBA's post.
Wombat
06-13-2001, 09:12 AM
BBA, your amazing. I was going to reformat my c drive due to driver probs and then I read this and it jaulted my memory back to dos and the deltree commands..
Thanks BBA, and thanks Dave for bumping the thread. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif
I think my computer was down when this topic was posted. Now I finally get to read it. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif
Btw, I never format my drive unnecessarily. I only do it when it's new or when I install it in another computer. This method is much better than the one I use(d) though. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
NDC
06-13-2001, 05:16 PM
However, reformatting does have its advantage... It'll find bad sector and mark them BAD so you won't be installing the OS on a hard disk or hard disk partition that has a bad sector...
prexaspes
06-13-2001, 06:45 PM
Man, it's good to know, but I never'll get the chance to use it.
One customer is running on win98 se upgraded from windows 95 upgraded from windows 3.11, even after a box change. And hard disk change.
Another customer - Whatever you do don't delete anything. This is invariably after his computer is saying to him "go eat moo goo gai pan and die" when he boots it up and at least two ther people and his other tech company have tried to fix it. I once spent a weekend scrubbing 5 seperate viruses off his computer AFTER he paid another company $500 to do this very same procedure 1 week before.
Why am I screwed? I ask for these cases. I fix 'em when nobody else can, and reformat is not an option. Don't delete anything means no program files can go.
What do you do to reinstall a program that enduser doesn't have a copy for anymore? Ya think he'll buy another copy? Are you sure you'll be able to pull all the .dll's out of the system dir to backup that program? Are you sure there's nothing in the registry you don't know about?
In the real world, enduser is the master of his machine and will turn his monitor to face his printer and command it to recognize his printer. Enduser says his 5 year old machine doesn't need anything like a new hard disk until you show him the pie chart and spell out it's meaning to him.
Good post though, I'll be able to use it on some machines, like mine! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
samwichse
06-13-2001, 07:53 PM
That's why they call Lucas the "prince of darkness" I believe.
My technique is a little simpler, I just do my boot disk (with smartdrv of course) and do a deltree of WINDOWS and then reinstall. No lost info (except ie bookmarks, and who needs ie anyway). The only thing windows seems to gunk up really badly are its own directory and the root of the c: drive. I haven't formatted my hard drive since I bought the computer, and that was only to image the old hdd's info onto the new and do what I just said above. So I'm really still going unformatted for about 4-5 years now. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
[This message has been edited by samwichse (edited 06-13-2001).]
BBA
06-13-2001, 08:07 PM
Actually Sam...Program Files will get messed up along with Windows in some cases, thats why I rename it.
Also, you can not beat the "Winbak" procedure I came up with: ----Less than 5 minutes to having a fully functioning new OS again...losing nothing in the process...and all drivers loaded like day one!
Jonty
06-14-2001, 12:56 AM
Thanks BBA! I've got the instructions printed off and the Winback folder sitting on the drive, I did this the last time you posted about this. I've never had to use it but its great insurance.
Cheers!!
invictus1997
06-16-2001, 12:02 AM
this is such a greeeeat news!!! COOL! read it jut before i was about to format my hard drive for a goog old fresh install of win98se. i'll try this one first and see if it really works as good as it sounds. thanks a lot, you probably saved my weekend.
Edhel-Dil
08-09-2001, 04:07 PM
Bump!
This great email just saved me a lot of hassle.
Only i just renamed "progra~1" to "progra~1.old" and did "attrib +h +r progra~1.old" instead of just deleting it (optionnal step "e"). Then once win98 booted correctly I moved the directories back in the new Program files, deleting and reinstalling only the programs who seemed too messed up by the lack of registry entry (you have also to find out which DLLs those programs use, and put them in the windows\system dir as needed. The latest version the better. [except for some weird programs, in which case upgrading the program itself is better than copying the old dll to make it work])
As DDA say, a lot of programs works happily without a registry entry, but well, most of my programs lived in Program Files so I thought I may as well not delete it ;^p
Anyaway I wanted to bump this thread as it saved me so much time! great post, DDA!.
Olivier.
SysOpt.com
Copyright Internet.com Inc. All Rights Reserved.