[john1]

Hi,

Angelize is unlikely to want to format her hard drive,
but if she does want to do that, please let her know that
some Compaq machines had a proprietary arrangement where a
small partition was used as part of the BIOS, they called it
'Diagnostics'

I do not know if her machine is one that uses it.
I only mention this because it happened to me,
re-instating the Diagnostics section was an unwelcome
additional problem.

Regards, John

[valley]

Mar called later on in the night last night to tell me that she couldnt take my call to work on the computer because she was in bed with a headache. I told her to give me a call today around 11 (thats about the time I give Luke his lunch). I didnt hear from her so I just called and got her voicemail. I suspect that she's still got the headache. I'm so sorry not to have any answers for you yet. As soon as I hear from her, i'll post and give the results. I'm sure she'll call as soon as she can.

[valley]

Originally Posted by john1

Hi,

Angelize is unlikely to want to format her hard drive,
but if she does want to do that, please let her know that
some Compaq machines had a proprietary arrangement where a
small partition was used as part of the BIOS, they called it
'Diagnostics'

I do not know if her machine is one that uses it.
I only mention this because it happened to me,
re-instating the Diagnostics section was an unwelcome
additional problem.

Regards, John

and dont forget...anything she has to do like this has to be relayed by me on the phone. So far the commands have been easy to relay but if she has to format her hard drive and it involves a long time then I might not be able to do it all in one phone call. It would probably be easier for me to print out the directions and mail them to her. I have no problem doing that if someone wants to tell her how to do it.

Actually, I could print out the whole thread and mail it to her so she can try everything again (incase something got lost in the translation, lol)

[help4me]

Val.... please tell Mar that I said hello and I wish I had the tech knowledge to be of more help. I did try to call her several times over the weekend but got her voicemail.

[valley]

Originally Posted by help4me

Val.... please tell Mar that I said hello and I wish I had the tech knowledge to be of more help. I did try to call her several times over the weekend but got her voicemail.

I will do that Bonnie. I spent a couple of hours (combined time of several calls) on the phone with her over the weekend. Maybe if she's talking to someone on the phone, it automatically goes to voicemail? I dunno!

[~Candy~]

Yak, yak, yak

[aarhus2004]

Hello team,

I thought I would ask some questions.

If a format is done on a Compaq P. would it not mean that the way to recovery would have to include an installation CD (hewee, I love you! I can see what I am 'saying' thanks to you)? I believe Marlene doesn't have one.

Does a 'Recovery' CD give a full installation? I ask because Marlene has only that (or so I believe).

The 'Diagnostics', "which exists on some Compact machines" (see john1 above), as something which presumably would remain intact since it is, apparently, Bios or partition related, would only have relevance if no format had been done. Correct?

Do we know when this machine was last working? Do we have any knowledge of what was done to the machine while it was still working which may have caused a corruption of the registry?

Is there a recent history of virus (or?) infection?

Was the machine brand new on purchase?

In Post#1 of this thread we learned:

The basic problem is that it will not boot into Windows whatsoever. Here is what happened when she tried to boot-up.

She hits the power button and it starts to make a noise. She comes to a screen where she is given the following message: "Windows has detected a registry/config error. Use scan reg/restore to correct the errors"

It then gives her the option of how to startup.

she selects Normal and gets this: "reg file not found"...

What other options were offered besides Normal?

What follows is an edit by this poster:

These were outlined in Post#1 I missed them - sorry all. Here is what valley posted on the other options taken and the results of her so doing:

...Then the new hardware wizard comes up to say "new hardware found" she clicks "next" and it says "hardware not found" then she clicks "finish"

Then she gets this message: "ENUM\HTREE\ROOT\O....SUREG Create Key failed" Then she gets a gray screen with nothing on it.

she reboots and selects LOG and gets this:

"Windows has detected a registry/config error. Use scan reg/restore to correct the errors"

and also "Registry services may not be operative for this session.

she reboots and selects Safe Mode and gets this:

"Windows has detected a registry/config error. Use scan reg/restore to correct the errors"

she reboots and selects Step by Step Confirmation and gets this:

"Windows has detected a registry/config error. Use scan reg/restore to correct the errors"

then: Create a startup file? Yes or No (she selects yes)
then: lootlog text? Yes or No (she selects yes)
then: Enable SmartDrvdisk cache? Yes or No (she selects yes)
then: loaded & initialized TFSHLP.SYS drivers complete
then: Load all Windows drivers? Yes or No (she selects yes)
then "Registry file is not found. Registry services may be inoperable for this session"
then: Override? Yes or No (she selects yes)
then: Standard? Yes or No (she selects yes)
then: IFSMGR? Yes or No (she selects yes)
then: MSmouse.vxd? Yes or No (she selects yes)
then: SUREG Create Key Failed

end Edit

Based on our help/suggestions:

Marlene has used her originally created StartUp floppy and chosen Option 4 (Minimal Boot) and has tried the following:

She has changed the A:\> to the C:\> (where > means prompt)
and entered

scanreg /restore
and scandisk
and Windows\Options\Install\setup
and Windows\Options\setup

each to no useful effect.

We await the results of her entering (at the C:\>)

dir which may show a list of files and a summary of disk space remaining.

and,

without the StartUp floppy being inserted, her pressing F10 on start-up and being taken into the Bios where she can determine if the hard-disk is, in fact, listed both under the headings 'Main' and 'Boot', and whether the word Diagnostic(s) is present.

What more have I missed?

Ben.

[valley]

Just got of the phone with Mar. She had a headache the entire day yesterday, as well as this morning but is feeling better now and is ready to resume. I couldnt talk long because Luke was pulling on me but I did get a few questions in, even if we didnt get to actually try anything with the commands.

Originally Posted by aarhus2004

If a format is done on a Compaq P. would it not mean that the way to recovery would have to include an installation CD (hewee, I love you! I can see what I am 'saying' thanks to you)? I believe Marlene doesn't have one.

Correct, she doesnt have one. Sorry to read of your vision problems, Ben! Would it help if I posted in all bold text to you from now on?

Does a 'Recovery' CD give a full installation? I ask because Marlene has only that (or so I believe).

yes, she has the recovery CD as well as a backup startup floppy. She cannot boot into the Recovery CD but can boot into the backup floppy.

Do we know when this machine was last working?

It was last working the morning of the day that I started this thread.

Do we have any knowledge of what was done to the machine while it was still working which may have caused a corruption of the registry?

She had previously been having shutdown issues and for a long time, the only way to shut it down was to hold the button in until it powered down. It never shut down by clicking the "start" button like everyone else's does. The morning it happened, the pictures on her screen all got tiny with a huge black border around it (a recurring problem) the picture was so small that she could not read the words on it so she pressed the button in to power it down like she always does to shut her computer down and when it tried to reboot, nothing came back. Its been like that every since.

Is there a recent history of virus (or?) infection?

she says that she has not had a virus is a very very long time and her antivirus is up to date.

Was the machine brand new on purchase?

I believe it was purchased new in 2001. I forgot to ask her this, sorry. I'll double check tomorrow.

What other options were offered besides Normal?

I posted in the first post the other options and indicated what they were by underlining them...there was "Log" "Safe Mode" and then "Step by Step Confirmation"

Marlene has used her originally created StartUp floppy and chosen Option 4 (Minimal Boot) and has tried the following:

She has changed the A:\> to the C:\> (where > means prompt)
and entered

scanreg /restore
and scandisk
and Windows\Options\Install\setup
and Windows\Options\setup

each to no useful effect.

Correct.

We await the results of her entering (at the C:\>)

dir which may show a list of files and a summary of disk space remaining.

and,

without the StartUp floppy being inserted, her pressing F10 on start-up and being taken into the Bios where she can determine if the hard-disk is, in fact, listed both under the headings 'Main' and 'Boot', and whether the word Diagnostic(s) is present.

What have I missed?

Ben.

Ben..you are right on top of it all, thank you! I was getting a little overwhelmed by the amount of information and commands and this has helped me a lot to remember where we are! Thanks so much!

I told her to call me around 11 tomorrow and if i didnt hear from her, i'd try to call her and to make sure she picked up, lol! The baby will be having his lunch and i'm sure we can get caught up during that time. Tonight, I am taking the evening off to watch TV. I'll post as soon as I hear from her and she's tried everything suggested.

Also..someone asked me privately if she has tried to see if there are any loose connections inside of the tower (and I had avised her to check for major dust bunnies that might be clogging up the fans and causing it to overheat) She says that she cannot get the panel off....her brother last took it off when he gave her his old monitor 6 months ago and she thinks he might have cleaned it out then (but isnt sure)...so she will still work on getting that panel off while we are waiting. She said she's ready to take a screwdriver to it if necessary.

Thanks again for the help and for being so patient.

[aarhus2004]

Hello valley,

Thanks for the offer of bold text but no need, hewee has put me straight on that one.

My apologies for missing the options. I have edited them into to my last post.

Although we are uncertain of the connection between the issues (there are two others), you have superbly summarized them in your last post.

I have so much admiration for yourself and Marlene, valley, I really do. It will be a great day when this is resolved - one way or the other.

Ben.

[valley]

Originally Posted by aarhus2004

I have so much admiration for yourself and Marlene, valley, I really do. It will be a great day when this is resolved - one way or the other.

Ben.

thats very kind of you to say, thank you. The feeling is definitely mutual. *hugs*

I hope we can get it figured out so she can get back online soon.

[aarhus2004]

Hello valley,

From your first post:

"She hits the power button and it starts to make a noise."

Is this noise the normal noise of her computer when the boot process begins and does she hear the usual beeps before a screen appears?

What is the hard disk's size, valley? And who manufactured it - if known?

*********************** What follows is informational.

Your Post#7 "backup restore floppies" I think these maybe for her Address Book, Favorites and so on but obviously included the StartUp one.

Your Post#46 TechGuy

"I just scanned through this thread, and was wondering -- have we checked to make sure she's not out of disk space? I had a customer with a corrupt registry once and couldn't repair it until I realized I had no disk space"

followed by your

"would that involve putting another memory stick in then?"

No. Freeing-up hard disk space and so allowing Windows room to operate is it. I don't know whether that is possible in DOS. It maybe though, if one knew the path to the deletable stuff. Music files? Video files? System Restore folders, PC Health stuff - I am guessing. I don't know how TechGuy would go about it though. The dir command, if it can work, will reveal the free space. If too little then TechGuy might have a contribution to make at that point.

Cheers.

Ben.

[aarhus2004]

Hello valley,

This idea comes courtesy Zee here

Bootup with a startup floppy disk and at the A:\> prompt type

C: (press enter)

Now type:

cd windows\command (press enter)

Your prompt should now read C:\Windows\Command>

Now type:

scanreg /restore (space between g and /)

Press enter, select a date PRIOR to the problem, press enter, wait for the
process to finish and reboot WITHOUT the disk.

See if you sort it out this way.

Zee

Please pass it on to Marlene.

Ben.

[valley]

Thanks Ben. I will pass that along to her. I tried to call her today at 11:30 and got her voicemail and she didnt call back. I hope she's not sick or something. I'm not going to keep phoning. I'll just wait for her to call me when she's ready to continue. Thank you for your patience.

[valley]

Marlene just called me. She said she had someone over at her house today to work on her computer who knows a little bit about computers and that he tried everything in this thread and that nothing worked. She is done trying to fix it now. Going back and forth on the phone was very difficult and after this guy tried to help and nothing worked, that was kinda the last straw for her. She's pretty frustrated.

So thanks everyone (especially Ben...the WinMe king!!!!) for doing all that you could to help me help her. I'm so sorry it didnt work.

But very grateful for the massive effort!

[~Candy~]

It's too bad that one of us couldn't speak with the person trying to fix it.........