Please Help! (ack!!) I was installing this program, and it was doing some registry change, and my computer started buzzing the harddrive for like 30 seconds striaght, I thought it locked up so I restarted the computer, HOLY ****!!!! First it couldnt find the system files in the autoexec.bat file, so I found those files and restored it from dos, using the bootup floppy for 98, then it says it cant find win.com , I finally restored that, now it says cant find asp4dos.com (its my audio card driver), that ones not that important, it can boot with out it, but then the killer.... It says it cant find the REGISTRY!!! omg!!! And I try to use scanreg /restore and it says it cannot find any backups! What am I gunna do? I dont really want to have to format it, I had alot of stuff on that drive..... HELP!!!

Hey Guy, reeellllaaaxxx, we can change.
Hrmph... anyways, first do a scandisk and say yes to do a surface scan. If you suddenly lost that many files, you might have bad clusters on the hard drive (physical imperfections)... unless the program you were installing was from a questionable source using questionable means, then it might have been a virus.

If you're pretty sure you didn't run a virus, and scandisk comes back and says the disk is ok, well, when it comes to that problem you described, the OS is pretty much hosed, but you don't have to reformat to reinstall Windows, even a clean reinstall. You can do one of these two options:
1.) Go ahead and reinstall Windows ontop of itself (without FDISK'ing or reformatting). You may get the system back with all your programs and settings, but it may still be unstable.
2.) But really, I recommend a clean install. First boot up with the dos disk. Rename the Windows and Program Files directories to something else.
Ex. C:>rename Windows Old_WIn
C:>rename Progra~1 Old_Progs
Then, start the setup process. BUT VERY IMPORTANT- the setup process will scan the hard drive and it will find the old Windows folder and try to install to that folder, even though you renamed it. THIS WILL NOT GIVE YOU A FRESH INSTALL. Instead, pay attention to the setup prompts, and when it says "Install Windows in C:\Old_Win", clear out the "Old_Win" portion and type in "Windows" for the destination folder.

This second option I have listed will give you a fresh install of Windows, without having to have erased the disk and all your old data. But, you will have to reinstall all your programs, and you will have a heavily fragmented drive. Once you've salvaged all your data, delete the Old_Win and Old_Progs folders, then defragment your hard drive.

*Note: If scandisk returns bad cluster errors, I seriously recommend you get a new hard drive. Install Windows on the new hard drive, change your old hard drive to slave, and copy all your old data over to the new drive with the new system, and chunk the old drive, or at least don't keep anything on there that you don't want to loose permanently.

Analyst's suggestion may be the route to go, but if this happened recently, try the following:

Start the computer, pressing the Ctrl key continuosly on startup to access the boot menu.
On the boot menu, select item #5: Command Prompt Only.

At the C:\> prompt enter: scanreg /restore Press Enter.

Use the arrow keys to select a prior started registry from the backups provided.
After selecting a saved Registry which has a date that prior to when the problem started, press Enter.

When it goes back to the C:\> prompt, type: Win and press: Enter to return to Windows.

See if that works.

Well, heck, you already tried scanreg /restore. Senior moment!!

Try the following:

At the C:\> prompt key in:
scanreg /fix
Press: Enter.

A message window should appear informing whether the registry was repaired.
Press Enter or OK to acknowledge.

When C:\> appears again, key in:
scanreg /opt
Press: Enter. This option optimizes the Registry, and removes any 'blank' spaces from it.

Back at the C:\> prompt, key in:
Exit
Press: Enter. Reboot.

What happens??

Hi samsungsync, Analyst, FZWG, hi everyone,

Another clue: if you have lots of data, first thing, think of saving it because, sometimes, events go from bad to worse!
A possibility is to mount your disk as a slave unit into another computer and copy data to another storage!
Then you will breathe better! ;-)

Then try the very good suggestions Analyst and FZWG wrote in their posts.

HTH

Have a good day,
Gérard from Paris, France

All the bad things that happened simultaneously tell me that the program that you interrupted was probably doing some nasty things to your hard drive. I would not try him again.

I suggest you d/l the trial version reg mechanic
http://www.winguides.com/regmech/

Great Program

Wow! What a response :) Well.. I have Nortons Internet Security 2002 program, and I had it running when I tryed to install the program... So it couldnt have been messing anything up, that it shouldnt of had right? I have the lastest virus definitions and everything.. Well I didnt do a clean install.. I probably should of.. If I run into too many problems then I will. I installed it over its self. And, I forgot to note.. lol that when I restarted my comp when the installer was running it said "Editing Registry" when I restarted... **Note to self- Never restart when editing the registry** :) Well.. I just installed my Road-Runner Internet Explorer disk. When I go on the internet, instead of the lil' microsoft globe thingy, it shows Road Runner running! heh.. Well, If I have anymore problems Ill be coming back, but thanks for all the help everyone! BTW my hard drives are about 1-2 years old, my windows drive is a 20gb,and my game HD is 40 gb.. I shouldnt have any problems with windows and FAT32 right? Just making sure.. (I gotta get Win2000 soon... Sooo Stable)
P.S. I think I may take college on computer tech stuff.. I think im good at the stuff with some help here and there :) Can ya' guess how old I am? hehe... Well.. Again Thanks guys! Its working now!! my data!! yay!!!!!