I am soooooooo screwed! Need help (or hammer!)

[El_Brio]

Well I have posted my problem b4 but didn't get any help and it seems to have progressed. Here is a synopsis:

Everything started around the time I tried to install the ACTION halflife mod. Halfway thru the installer crashed giving me a message that said something like "corrupt installition media error". Well, I gave up trying to install it and then I noticed that HL wouldn't work anymore. I tried to re-install that and got the same **** error. Well, since then I can't seem to install ANYTHING. A few things have worked, but half the time My comp goes to either that **** Corrupt installation media error or I get the blue screen of death with the "FATAL EXCEPTION ERROR"

Well I know that the first advice I am going to get is that I should re-install windows - but here is the crux of the biscuit - My computer can't even re-install WINDOWS!!!! The second time I tried it it crashed and I had to reboot several times before I could recover my desktop. WHAT CAN I DO???? I am at wits end and do NOT want to have to format my c: drive and install windows from scratch. THat took me HOURS last time I did that.

I have several possible therories about my problem:

1) I have some wierd virus
2) My hard drive is going bad
3) Windows sux **** and I need to switch to Linux.


SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!

[cyclone2]

[1]what have you done about checking for virus's- recent update and scan?
[2]have you scan disked and defragged/ checked for bad sectors?
[3]wont help if you have probs with 1 & 2!

[El_Brio]

1) Did one of those "online" virus scans the other day. It turned up clean. Tried to download and install anti virus program(s) but can't install anything

2) Disk totally defragged about 2 weeks ago. Scandisk done yesterday

[BFlurie]

Hard drive "buzzing" any? Sometimes Scandisk won't catch marginal clusters that might be corrupting key files.

[jman01pa]

Sorry to hear your bad luck. You are in a no win situation. Save yourself the aggravation and "Format". I know that is a severe way to go but how many hours do you have wrapped up in this? Enough said....

Good luck!


J http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[Ed_S]

When you tried to reinstall Windows, how did you go about it?
Full boot?
Boot to DOS?
Boot floppy?

And what version?

If you haven't tried it, boot with a known good boot floppy, then reinstall. Hopefully, that'll fix whatever's corrupt, and you won't lose all your settings and installed apps.

[El_Brio]

Need clarification on that last reply......


When I tried to re-install Win98 I simply put the disk in and ran setup. Is this wrong?

[Erap!]

there's nothing wrong with his installation procedures. It's probably your ram. Ive come across a few computers in the past and sometimes, the ram just gives in. Try borrowing a piece of ram from someone and see if the problem goes away. If it doesn't then it might be your motherboard. I dont think it's your hard disk because if it is, it'l let you install and youll run into problems afterwards. A virus will either completely not let the install program run, or just complicate things after installation.

[CMonster]

I think Erap! is on the right track. I recommend that you first reseat (reseat- as in pull-push-wiggle-physically reinstall) your RAM, your CPU, and all your cards and cables (power, data ribbons etc.)

Make sure that your CPU settings are correct - if you overclock perhaps this would be a good time to set it back to factory defaults. Don't leave out a thorough check of the CPU temperature - too often I have found a PC problem to be a CPU fan that is no longer working.

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 10-16-2000).]

[fishbob]

I have had the same problems on other program loads and I found that the way my HD is reported in my BIOS was incorrect and it wouldn't work until I corrected that. If I might suggest that you go into your BIOS and look at your HD, Floppy, CD and their priority. In Award's Bios' you have Primary and Secondary Master and Slave and they report their capabilies. I had problems that showed the established protocols as incorrect and nothing would work until this was straightened out. Just a suggestion.

PS. Look throughout the BIOS for any glaring errors you are sure of. This will definately stop everything cold.

Good Luck

Six - two - even - over and out!

[El_Brio]

All this talk about my memory/ harddrive bios settings sounds interesing to me. I noticed that the last month or so my clock is wrong when I restart my 'puter. Maybe my battery is dead and I am losing my Bios settions or something? Does this sound possible? I will check it tonight in the meantime. Any other suggestions?

[Ted61]

Sorry, but a dead battery won't cause your computer to crash. I ran an old 133 for over a year with a dead battery. You will just have to bite the bullet and format the old hard drive. Time is like money when you waste a lot of it, there comes a time to just do it right and get it over with.

Ted

[Ed_S]

Definately check the battery & bios settings next. Settings MUST be right before it'll work.

To clarify my suggestion, what I meant is did you allow the machine to boot to Windows, and then run setup?

If it IS a software issue, booting from a boot floppy (or directly from the CD, if possible) would allow you to start the setup process without ever accessing the possibly corrupt files on the HD.

And I still suggest you try that next, before moving on to hardware. If the error reoccurs during this, THEN you know you've got a hardware problem!

[Underclocked]

I'm finding newer motherboards tend to dissipate batteries much quicker than the older boards. Could it be the programmable bios capabilities combined with much larger flashable memory? Anyway, batteries being low, not necessarily dead, can cause all sorts of abnormalities to occur and a new one can be had for a couple of bucks. One of the cheapest, quickest, and often best efforts you can make is to simply replace that little battery. Usually size 2032 and available at most any drugstore.

[jadison]

1st, start out by formatting and FDISK'ing ur HD. format the c: drive, then FDISK it, create a primary partition (or whatever ur choice), then start out by restarting ur puter and put ur windows 98SE CD in (or win98 1st ed. CD) and have ur Win 98SE (or Win981st ed.)boot disk in the disk drive. When the computer pops up to the menu, pick CD ROM Support, and go about installing ur version of Windows 98.

Now if that doesnt work u may need to check ur settings in the BIOS, and make sure all the proper information for ur HD and other peripherals is being displayed.

**Double-check that ur Boot-disk and Win98 CD are both the same version of Win98 and are both good.**

Hope u get ur machine working.

-=jd=-

[Erap!]

See, look at ur scenario. You install something, it hangs, you try to take it out, but it doesnt work. Fine, it might have screwed up some essential files. You reformat, re-install, and still it's busted. Conclution? It wasn't because of the software u installed in the first place. Whatever hardware it is that conked out will conk out while you're using it so chances are, if something does conk out, you or anybody would have probably been doing something and would probably blame that thing he or she has been doing for it! I dont think it has anything to do with any setting or software. Reseat everything, then if you're sure everything is in the right place, start replacing parts starting with the ram, followed by the motherboard. If it still remains busted, even after checking your hard disk for bad sectors, you probably have a burnt out CPU. This usually happens rarely during normal use, but more frequently when you attempt overclocking. Even running a processor just a few milliseconds over the "edge" can damage it.