I have been told its possible to do a non distructive reinstall of WinMe without losing any ifo or having to re-install all of your drivers. Apprently its to late for you ,however hopefully this wil help someone else, here is copy of directions ,then I will also provide directions I copied for getting WinMe up and running !
>do a nondistuctive windows m.e reinstall with out loseing data goto safe mode and than c:windows\options\cabs\setup.exe
double click setup and windows will start reinstalling on top of its self
Also other way to get WinMe back >Windows wont start!!!!???
Ok you will need a windows m.e boot disk.
if you dont have one you can get one from www.bootdisk.com
you will need to reboot into dos by putting the windows m.e boot disk into drive and
rebooting
Next choose with out cd-rom suport click enter.
there will a flashing curor and it will look like a>:_
you will be asked to do these dos fixes at the a: or a: prompt. the easy things first
at the a: type sys c: click enter (a:sys c:)
if secessfull it will say system tranferd than reboot computer.
if this did not work at the a:fdisk /mbr click enter and reboot.
note space bettween fdisk and /mbr
next you can try deleteing temp files from prompt
a:del c:\windows\temp*.* click enter
next try deleteing the swap file
a:del c:\win386.swap
and a veary important over looked solution is
a:scanreg /restore click enter
you have 5 registry restore points set by default,and each new day you try to restart
computer you loose one older restore point.
anther thing you can do from dos is look at your bootlog.txt
a: c:\windows\bootlog.txt click enter
if it dont go than a: c:\bootlog.txt
You can look at the last thing listed in log and most likely its the item that caused
windows not to load.
If the file is in windows you can rename it to old from what ever its was befor ie;exe
txt dll ect.
an example of renameing would be to rename windoz.dll to windoz.old you would use
a:ren c:windows\windoz.dll c:\windows\windoz.old
then click enter note space
you can use rename in place of ren
You can allso do a system restore from dos with boot disk allso
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];Q279736
How to Start the System Restore Tool From a Command Prompt
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
Summary
Windows Millennium Edition (Me) includes the System Restore tool, however, you cannot start
the System Restore tool from a command prompt. Because of this, it may be useful to start
the System Restore tool when you are unable to start your Windows Me-based computer
normally or in Safe mode. This article describes how to start the System Restore tool when
you are unable to start your Windows Me-based computer normally or in Safe mode.
More Information
To start the System Restore tool when you are unable to start your Windows Me-based
computer normally or in Safe mode, you can temporarily change the Windows shell from
Explorer.exe to Progman.exe:
Start your computer by using the Windows Me Startup disk.
At the Startup menu, choose Minimum Boot.
At the command prompt, type edit c:\windows\system.ini, and then press ENTER.
Edit the shell= line so that it looks like this:
shell=progman.exe
Press ALT+F, and then press S to save the changes to the System.ini file.
Press ALT+F, and then press X.
Remove your Windows Me Startup disk, and then restart your computer. When your computer
restarts, Program Manager should start. If Program Manager does not start, repeat steps
1-7, being careful to follow these steps exactly, and then continue to the next step.
On the File menu, click Run, type msconfig in the Command Line box, and then press ENTER.
Click Launch System Restore to begin restoring your computer to a previous, functional
state.
NOTE: After you configure your computer to start Program Manager, you can start the System
Restore tool by typing c:\windows\system\restore\rstrui.exe at a command prompt, and then
pressing ENTER.
For additional information about the System Restore tool, click the article number below to
view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q267951 Description of the System Restore Utility in Windows Me
First Published: Nov 15 2000 12:18PM
Keywords: kbtool kbWinME kbProd2Web kbhowto dos mode
And now for a restore of windows functions by newgrl
this is a last ditch way to open windoz if all else has faild than you have nothing to
lose.
Name: newgrl
Date: December 24, 2001 at 22:19:09 Pacific
Subject: replacing system.ini
Reply:
On the root of the C: drive (... where I am assuming Windows ME is installed) there should
be a hidden file named system.cb
This is a "backup" system.ini that contains no third party drivers.
Copy it to c:\windows and rename it to system.ini... then see if you can boot up.
If you can, you will have to install a bunch of drivers. Including video, sound, scanners,
cameras, etc... but you should be able to boot.
and heres how to make it work from boot disk
you will need to reboot with m.e bootdisk in drive if you dont have one you can d/l one
from www.bootdisk.com
chose to boot withwith out cd-rom suport at the a: you will type (will look like this)
a:c: click enter
next c: dir /p to move to next pages in dir click enter
click enter
c:copy system.cb windows system.ini
click enter
if it says there is allraedy a file by that name and it will be over writen click yes or ok
allso
you can runscandisk from dos to check for errors and if many are found this may be why
windows dose not start and a new hard drive might be needed.
Allso when m.e is instald, copys of your registry files are made and remain unmodified
until the next time windows is instald.
the back up,system.1st ,is loacated in your root directory. if all else fails,you can
at least to some extent,restore your system to its instald state by copying these files
over those in use.
although it wont have any of your most recent settings,it should start windows.
and for the restore from hell you can reinstall windows over its self.
i did this the other day with no errors or problems,but its not allways so
heres the dos comand for it i,ll give both because some computers the the cab files are in
a diferant place
a: c:\windows\options\cabs\setup click enter
next a: c:\windows\cabs\setup click enter
Well I hope something in all of that stuff helps ?
Good Luck Nick
