Hello I put together some of the more comon and not so common ways to start windows when it wont start or boot. 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 there are more ways to start stuck windows if you know them please post them here allso thank you in advance Have a nice day

Thanks man this is amazing what you did thanks a million!

your veary wellcome glad some one noticed

Dave in WaWa? Great page of Bootup Info. I'm a mechanic by trade, but a puter enthusiast since DOS 3.0 on my 286 to now on a Duron 750, etc... I find it is very interesting BUT, in my lowly opinion; in many cases: it's easier and faster to re-install Windows ME and SAVE all the programs and settings and let them(ME-install) do it, because it only takes me 30 minutes flat online ....even with my transparent proxy, LAN, 1394; direcPC dish card, external modem, etc all nicely configured. Then, I check the msconfig to see what is loading in the startup tab and set what is needed and quarantine any particular file if it was a problem before and enjoy.

wawadave, you are a piece of work! I am amazed at your knowledge. You gave very articulate information in your "help" post. It is refreshing to see someone helping others out of the goodness of their heart. :) I am having a big problem booting Windows ME. The error messages say: The Following File Is Missing or Corrupted: C:\Windows\Ifshlp.sys The following file is missing or corrupted: C:\Windows\System\Vmm32.vxd Type the name of the Windows loader (e.g., C:\Windows\System\Vmm32.vxd I am confused as to how I might retrieve my files from that system, should the restoration of those two missing or corrupted files not work and I need to reformat, as I have a great deal of important work on there. (approx. 26 GB!) Thanks in advance!!!

Hello, I report a ME loading error I can't fix with the different advices I found on forums, including Microsoft. The config is Pentium 4 1.7 Ghz Asus motherboard 256 M Ram 40G hdd NvidiaGeforce3 no modem The problem is ME stops loading after username and password entry. After this, a black screen appears with only the mouse pointer and the wait icon. Trying different fixes was inefficient since sys, bootlog, msconfig, restore were not available. After reinstalling ME, I got same problem but a new error message appeared saying serwave was gulty and error code OE:0028:c2a27004. Then I could remove serwave and run regedit and remove all references to serwave. After that fix new error code OE:0028:c15673a4 but no file name. By pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL, the names of running tasks were cmdninst and msmouse.vxd I tried another reinstall yesterday with no progress. I tried starting in step by step and noticed all steps are OK until msmouse.vxd step confirmation. After confirm, a scandisk passed OK, then the message "ME install all plug and play devices" and I get the following error message on the famous blue screen : file name configmg (07) + 0001C60 error OE:0028:C0246F70 pressing enter gets the next error message in a window on a black screen : cmdninst causes an error in user.exe then a blue screen with same error message : file name configmg (07) + 0001C60 error OE:0028:C0246F70 after hit on enter, I get the blackscreen with mouse pointer and wait icon! By keying CTRL+ALT+DEL, I get the tasks names cmdninst and ME install I will appreciate any suggestion.... I think I have to disable peripheral drivers except mouse driver and install them back one by one to notice which one is wrong? Is it possible to inhibit driver one by one without uninstall it for example by deactivating the device istelf? Is it better to reinstall driver one by one, or to reinstall all drivers at once by copying vmm32.vxd? (I've translated error messages from french to english, sorry for any mistake) Thank you in advance Kind regards