thank you for the replys i will try this and let you know what happens.. angeljam

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You say ?"verything is referred to drive a: - the floppy"? That would seem to suggest there isn't a hard drive present; or at least it isn't (still) detected in the bios? Have a look-see and check that HD is still there (in the bios)? If it is still there, is it showing correct details etc.? If it is apparently still there correctly so, run the Fdisk routine via a '98SE boot-disk and inspect partitioning etc. (if still exists)? If none present try partitioning it - with both Primary and Extended areas; and then try to format both as fat32? Also try to repartition it and reformat etc as above. If it won?t allow (re)partitioning etc... you likely have duff/failing - or failed drive; one that is either terminally ill or actually hath died its death? If you run a google or similar www trawl using the search string/term: Stop: 0x0000006F (0xC0000020,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000) You'll get all manner of hits about it. A common/general prognosis appears to be either lack of drive space, or - a duff/failing drive? Even if the drive is found/shown in the bios it can still be faulty. It can be that the first sector is duff/damaged etc; and even if you seem able initially to partition it, it won?t format properly - and certainly won't boot up successfully? A failing drive means hardware style error messages, means no successful installation possible? I had such a trip in the days of NT4; and there are ways occasionally of fudging around this problem to allow the drive to work - more or less... But these days drives is so much cheaper than they woz in days of yore... so I'd buy a new drive... I'd suggest you check as above re' bios etc., and also run a FULL chkdisk routine (via '98SE boot disk). It may show you a few things you?d rather not want to see? And the drive manufacturer's web-site will also/likely have a suitable util to the same end?; which I suggest you download/use? I doubt it's RAM - but who knows (only the Shadow knows?). A simple (and kwikest) way to check RAM is to reduce to a single stick (min 128Meg) - if you have two or more installed; try each in turn? and if problem persists with one and not t'other, dump the stick that gives the problems. If possible beg/borrow etc. a known to be good stick to try too? MemTest utils take an age, and I?ve personally never found one to be any help; trial by substitution is so much easier? I may be way out a limb here - but that comment re' drive a: does suggest "sumat amiss with the HD"; which is why I suggest you check for the drive in the bios, its settings etc; and the drive's integrity.

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ok I don't know if this will help. I put his 98se (Copy) it finally came up to ask me the 3? so i choose 1 start with cd support then it goes threw and this comes up. 98 detected that drive C: doesnot contain valid FAT ot FAT32 partition there are several possible cause. 1. The drive may need to be partitioned to create a partition on the drive run FDISK from MS_DOS prompt 2.you maybe using third party disk patition software ( ok I'm not )... 3.some viruses also cause your drive C to not register you can use a virus scanning program to check your computer for viruses. MSCDEX version 2.25 Drive D: driver MSCD001 unit 0 Drive E: drive MSCD001 unit 1 Then it gives me this A:\ so i can chkdsk.exe it came up said to run a scandisk.exe so did that when it did the surface scan nothing bad came up it did say 5 clusters unused. so then I got A:\ so I typed C:\ and when that came up did another scandisk.exe not that one was alot smallier i would say and i should have wrote down that only about 15 clusters was used.. the rest unused.. so I'm not sure what letter is floppy and what letter is hard drive.. now it finally allowed me to get into FDISK i have 4 options I hit #4 display partition information. here is what that says. current fixed disk drive: 1 partition 1, status A, type ntfs, volume label, (nothing under it) mbytes 8221, system, (nothing under it) usage 100%. Total disk space is 8221 mbytes (1mbytes 1048576 bytes) here is what his hard drive is seagate medalist 8420 8.6 gbytes model ST38420A I don't if this info is help full. the XP disk doesn't help me at all i cannot even see the option to get to the recovery console or anything else . thank you guys for your post :) angeljam

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mmm… One does wonder just your “friend” was a doing-of to cause this mess… Fdisk reports a single partition that is the full size of the drive (more or less – depending on how one calculates it); and it’s (apparently) ntfs formatted… [ If you boot with a ’98SE boot-disk you get to the a: (floppy) drive; and you get prompt showing a:>\ And unless someone has been tweaking around in bios it “will” be a: - not b: or even c: (I think it’s impossible to make it other than : or b: ?). ] Unlikely – but not totally out of the frame is the bios antivirus utility. This is a little item that can get in the way of some/most windows installations; and is usually best disabled during setup/installation… It’s found (usually) in the bios advanced settings area… - and the link below details the how/where etc. Read it CAREFULLY and if in doubt don’t tweak anything without clarification first… Which having sed, it’s either on at present – in which case do what the screen says to toggle it off – and then exit saving changes Do NOT change anything else… If it’s already off – don’t do anything in that area at all, or anywhere else; simply exit without changes from the bios. The top of the screen (usually) has the various options etc. Which having sed… I’ve yet to ever go and disable it… but who knows? http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/step-18... Once you have ensured the bios antivirus is “off” follow Doug Knox’s routine “exactly”… But before you run Doug’s routine – reset the mbr to the dos (’98) level. I have known the odd instance where this has resolved an otherwise frustrated installation. Boot with the ‘98SE boot-disk and at the a:>\ prompt type: “ sys c: “ no “ “ – and press enter. Then remove floppy and boot up with XP CD etc. as per Doug’s notes. If the routine is successful that mbr will be rest/rewritten again to the XP version as is normal. If it still fails… then at this stage I’d be much inclined to think the original installation is likely trashed beyond repair anyway. If successful a repair installation routine “usually” preserves data… But here I doubt you’ll be so lucky? Presuming it still fails to allow a successful repair installation… then I’d download delpart.exe. Put it on a floppy and after booting the a: prompt via a ‘98SE boot-disk, change to the delpart floppy and run the utility – following the screen instructions “exactly”. After-which see if you can reconfigure the drive as a single partition, and formatted as FAT32. If successful here then boot with e XP CD and try an XP installation…? If you cannot reconfigure as single partition and formatted as FAT32… then I’d seriously question the drive’s health… And I would see if the Seagate/Maxtor diagnostics utility for hard-drives coughs up anything I might not wish to know…. This utility will check just about everything to with the drive; and will either pass it fully or tell you just what is amiss with it… A few bad clusters might be OK – but not if they’re at the start of the drive… If it passes the tests… then download their zero-fill utility and run that… This util writes zeros to the drive and sets it back as close as you can get it factory gate status… Often referred these days as a low level format (LLF) it’s more correctly described as a mid level format (MLF). A true LLF will wreck a modern drive; and your drive is probably regarded as modern in most camps – even if it’s a little small by current standards Disk/drive utils are at: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/su... and you want the Seatools for dos. The link below is from the above link – and is the manual/tutorial for the dos version of the utility… http://www.seagate.com/support/seat... If you have 2 x 128Meg RAM sticks installed – have you tried to get things going using just one stick; trying each in turn? Similarly are you able to borrow a known to be good stick – min 128Meg) again to see if it is by chance a RAM issue. XP is very unforgiving about dodgy RAM; W2K was a little more tolerant; NT not very tolerant; ’98 so so; ’95 even more so so… And more than few headaches have turned out to be dodgy (less than purrfekt) RAM… I doubt is a RAM issue here; but one never knows… If by chance you had another drive to put in… - just to see if you could install XP afresh on that - and it too failed - then it would put RAM into focus; or a motherboard-item issue…? If it did go in OK – whether or not you’ve tried everything above first… then it would pretty well say the current drive “is” a problem; and thus dump/replace it? Incidentally have you a copy of Linux on a CD by chance; be it Knoppix, Ubuntu or similar? If you have… boot up with that and see if it finds the hard drive and lists it as an asset/resource via the Linux version of Explore? If it doesn’t it would tend me to feel the drive is duff… It ought at least to show the drive present – regardless of what’s on it? Linux can handle fat32/ntfs OK and ought to see the drive… If there’s anything on it, it ought to show that too? If you haven’t got Knoppix or Ubuntu they can be downloaded (as an iso) and burned to a cd; which then use… Might be a useful first thing to try before going thru’ any of the above??

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ok trvlr I hope you are still here.. everything in your last post didn't work still same problem. except I was able to go to seagates website and download the DOS I ran the long scan and everything passed. but I still could not get anything to work command promt just kept telling me bad command or invalid. so I tried to install his hard drive in another computer i have again.(first i did that was before i posted on here and it didn't work) and this time I was able to put xp cd in and it came up perfect. i accept agreement it asked if i wanted to repair and i hit yes so if this works should I try to install his hard drive back into his machine and see what happens?? thanks for your help angeljam

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in the other pc i was able to get XP reload on his hard drive.. when I go to my computer his C drive reads NEW_OS. His recycle bin show what he had deleted that cause this problem in first place.. DO I EMPTY RECYCLE BIN OR RESTORE? Here what was delected.... 7.0.2600.2180 security catalog 7.0.2600.2180 policy file 7.0.2600.5512 security catalog 7.0.2600.5512 policy atl.dll (twice) comctl32.dll 6.0.2600.0,6.0.2900.2180,6.0.2900.2982 dxmrtp.dll 5.2.4949.5512 errorrep gdiplus.dll 5.1.3102.2180 ieexecremote.dll 2.050727.1433 mfc42.dll 6.0.8665.0 msn shortcut msucirt.dll 7.0.2600.0,7.0.2600.2180,7.0.2600.5512 msvcm80.dll 8.0.50727.42 msvcm60.dll 6.0.8972.0 msvcp80.dll 8.0.50727.42 mscrt.dll 7.02600.0,7.0.2600.2180,7.0.2600.5512 rtcres.dll 5.24949.5512 sqldb20.dllsqlqp20.dll sqlse20.dll system.enterpriseservices.dll " "wrapper.dll " "native thunks these are X86_microsoft windows folders &policys gdiplus,networking,systemcompatible,networking.rtcdll microsoft windows tools visualcplusplus runtime libraries common controls vc80.crt here is what his C: says capacity 8.02GB used 7.77 GB free 261 MB thanks angeljam

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mmm... I 'm not at all sure now just what is going on now with this drive... Are you saying that in the "new" installation (via a different "box") - in its recycle-bin - you can see the old one intact; or are there just "some" of the (previous installation's) files there? The list you post suggests some core files from some installation or other; but are they from the previous/original or which - who knows; and if they are - are they all that was deleted and thus screwed up the original installation??? And as I suggested earlier (in a more recent post above) I seriously doubt you can actually recover anything useful of the original installation now; there's been too much going on since "your friend" lost it all? Although it would appear that there are "some" core files etc. from (possibly the) original installation present in recycle-bin, just what will happen if you choose to restore them??? I don't think I'd bother finding out at this stage... As I understand it - a repair installation overwrites (replaces and deletes) original duff/damaged files (those that aren't any more applicable etc. to the current installation/location); and also restores any missing files... What is in the recycle-bin is by no means the complete original installation; only (apparently) a part of one? If you put this drive back into its original box you will have to run a repair installation - again - to get it to boot. You cannot (as one could with dos/'9x etc.) simply transfer a (XP/W2K) drive from one box to another and expect it to boot etc... One has to run a repair routine (again in this case); and sometimes do a little more too... That you can install to the drive (via another box; that the drive tested out OK (using the Seagate utils) obviously tells us the drive is OK. If when you put it back into its original box it still appears to play up, then either you do have a RAM issue (and thus follow advice from various earlier in that regard - including if no other RAM to hand etc... - a mem test util); or you have an issue with motherboard items - hard-drive controller (chip etc.); on-board cache - the list become almost endless at this stage. Best you can do now is to restore drive to its parent box; see what happens when it tries to boot up; if fails to - and likely it will, and likely it will give you an error message. At this stage boot with the CD and run a repair routine (again)... Hopefully it will do what's required? As I say above... I think any chances of recovering data etc. from the original installation are pretty well zero? If/when this system is up and running OK again, strongly encourage "your friend" to copy his data regularly off the system to optical-media. Also to leave well alone in terms of tweaking etc; unless he first checks with those better informed as to what he may (safely) do - first? And if you want to be really able to help him out in the future; make an image of the drive and store it on DVD-R; that way if "he" really screws it up again... you can restore a working image for him. If you go this latter/last path then regularly update that image too, so as to have a reasonably current one to hand - in event of a rerun of current mess?

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I was saying He deleted files out of his windows folder/program folder. When I went to his windows folder there are empty space everywhere from where he deleted things trying to clean up space on his hard drive.. His hard drive only has 261MB left on it. How that happened I don't know yet.. I also do believe there was a memory problem I installed two new 128's I am also installing a different hard drive I have a biggier one it is 20GB . the reason I 'm doing that is because when I tried to install his back into his tower I couldn't get into bios , the pc kept shuting off byself and I couldn't reach desktop still. and yes I will make backup copies to keep with me. I'm also going to show him not to go into them folders. One question I have is, how would you recommand I install the OS on the hard drive? I have a clean installation of 98. and now I need to put the upgrade XP on. trvlr Thank you for your help angeljam

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From what you say immediately above... I can see no way you can/will recover the previous OS installation; unless one gets into techniques more akin to forensics etc... You have an Upgrade XP CD - genuine article that is bootable; and you have '98 already installed - and you have a '98 CD - again bootable...? Presumably you have a single partition on the drive as is; a Primary only and no Extended partition area? Presuming so... you can either boot with the XP CD and follow on-screen prompts; and essentially "upgrade" '98 to XP and lose '98 in the process. Or you can go for a clean-install - and again lose '98. Or you can go for a dual-boot.. and have both OS installed... How big is the drive now - total space; how is it partitioned at present (is there just a Primary or or is there an Extended partition too)? The above info can impinge on and affect your choice re' upgrade or clean-install approach; and likewise a dual-boot?

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Hello, Either I'm stupid or something is really screwed up with this computer.. I have his XP upgrade disk.. I have Full version 98. The hard drive that is mine is 20.GB. Here is what happen: 1. I took his hard drive out put it into a different tower with new memory 2x128mb I was able to get to his desktop that way. did a repair using XP disk 2. I put his hard drive back into his computer (along with new memory) two things happened first it loaded I got same thing as before gets to desktop black screen so I shut off and waited turned back on to get to BIOS to make sure it boots from CD rom and it won't let me get to it . It starts to load then shuts off byself. 3.I took a hard (20.GB) I have put it into his tower did a Clean installation of windows 98. NO Problems with that installation boots right up .. went to upgrade to XP and heres what happened I got this message again A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. SESSION3_Initialization_Failed If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen restart your computer. if this screen appears again follow these steps. Check to make sure and ne hardware or software is properly installed if this is a new installation ask your manufacturer for any windows updates you might need. If the problem continue disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software Disable Bios memory option such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe mode to remove or diable components restart your computer press F8 to select advanceed startup options,then selected safe mode Technical information *** Stop: 0x0000006F (0xC0000020,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000) If I turn the tower on right now it loads very fast into 98.. I just don't know what to do from here I don't understand why it won't load XP.. when the XP disk is in it goes right to windows setup . doesn't ask if I want to do installation or anything.. I'm sorry I am probley confusing you trying to explain as best as I can.. angeljam

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