My computer only reaches the black DOS screen with no option of starting in safe mode. It tells me that win.ini and system.ini are both missing for some reason. I created an ME boot disk with all necessary files which brings me to a boot screen, but when I search for files using: scanreg /restore, it tells me that there were no files found, restore has failed. WTF? Can someone please be of some assistance? Thank you very much.

DDB, "WTF?" Hmm, my thought also :-) You mean you tried; scanreg /restore at the prompt, and got what you said. Ok, let's have some fun. Well, might be, just depends if you make it fun. Not a you *&^% computer this, *&=) computer that. Try this, ok. Start your computer with the "ME boot disk". Type the following commands, pressing Enter after each. c: cd _restore\archive dir /p Now, on your screen you should have CABs that start with RG. If not, press/tap the space bar once. Now look for them. You'll get a new screen full/page, each time you press the space bar. Write the exact name of one of the RG CABs down. Could also change...... Nevermind, wait for an expert/person that knows something... I've got a phone call..good luck

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 Reply: The only solution to this problem is to reinstall Windows unless he has a cloned backup available which can be restored. vmm32.vxd is a compiled driver created at installation and specific to the hardware on a particular system. It can not be obtained elsewhere, extracted or copied from another system. Advice on formatting and reinstalling is available here: Microsoft have an article on the Windows CDs and also on their website. On the ME CD you'll find the article in \addons\document\guide and it's called mqsg. The information you want starts about page 31. On a PC with ME already installed you will also find a similar article at C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\INSTALL\CLEANHD.TXT On the website, go to http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/topics/winme/setup/setupht.asp which also has a great deal of other useful information on dual booting, setup and uninstalling, and http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q255/8/67.asp http://www.windowsreinstall.com/ http://www.burzurq.com/forum/format_reinstall_.html are also useful Be very careful you have all your drivers and original disks for all your components and peripherals, or download latest versions before you start. When you have reinstalled, visit the homepage link on this response to tune up your installation and make problems less likely When you attempt to start your computer, you may receive the following error message: Error loading Explorer.exe. You must reinstall Windows When you click OK, you may receive the following error message: A required .DLL file, C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSVCRT.DLL, was not found. You may then be unable to start Windows. To resolve this issue, replace the Msvcrt.dll file with a new copy from the Windows CD. To do this, use the appropriate steps. Windows Millennium Edition: Restart the computer using a Windows Millennium (Me) Startup disk. At the Windows Me Startup menu, type 2, and then press ENTER. Record the drive letter that is assigned to the CD or DVD-ROM drive. Type ext, and then press ENTER to start the Microsoft Extract Command Line Helper starts. At the Please enter the path to the Windows CAB files (a:): prompt, type drive:\win9x (where drive is the drive letter that you recorded in step 3), and then press ENTER. Note: Depending on your installation of Windows, the Windows .cab files may also be stored in the \Windows\Options\Install folder. At the Please enter the name(s) of the file(s) you want to extract: prompt, type msvcrt.dll, and then press ENTER. At the Please enter the path to extract to ('Enter' for current directory): prompt, type c:\windows\system, and then press ENTER. At the Is this okay? (y/n) prompt, type y, and then press ENTER to extract the file to the specified directory. Remove the Windows Me Startup disk, and then restart the computer Good Luck Nick

I'll finish up on that, ok. Sorry for being so short. Had a family issue, that needed immediate attention. You can extract a system.ini & win.ini, from one of those CABs I had you find. I had you write the name down. So you could use it in the following command. Now, we will be in DOS. So, you have to use the first six(6) letters/numbers of that CAB, followed by ~1.cab Just replace the name I used in the command (in red), with yours. I don't have it automatically overwriting. That way, will know if they're present. Just curious. If you're prompted/asked to overwrite, say/answer yes. Do that, by typing Y, and pressing Enter. That's if you didn't know. After they're extracted, and you're back to just the prompt. Remove the bootdisk, and try starting the computer. extract /l c:\windows c:\_restore\archive\rg4272~1.cab system.ini win.ini That's ^^^^ all one line. It gets wrapped in here, sorry. Sorry again, and good luck, CrazyOne p.s. Thanks Nick

Thanks, Nick, Crazy, I use this BAT to save time & typing: ::** ext.bat @echo off > quit.bat if %1*==* quit for %%C in (*.cab) do extract /y %%C %1 ::** M2 If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

Okay....Pheww!!! First of all, thank you all for your suggestions! I was freaking out. So, here's where I'm at: I have successfully started my PC in Safe Mode. Good. If I attempt to boot the computer regularly, it gives me the following: This program must be run under Win32 WININIT.EXE: Missing/unable to load. Press any key to continue... _ Then, when I press a key it will now start in Safe Mode. What do I need to do now? Do you think it's a virus (which I know there are present), or is it a missing file or something? Thanks again for all the help, I'm almost there! [ The computer I'm on at the moment is running Windows Office 2000 Pro. ]

DDB, Aw, first, for anyone trying to keep up, with what is - isn't happening, and being done. Have a look at this. If you don't get things going. Give another shout, and say exactly where you're at. Will help then, if possible. Good Luck, CrazyOne