Alright, here's my story:

I have an old computer from 2001 that is running ME. I really don't care about it at all, except for the fact that there are a few files on it that I want to recover.

So, yesterday I turned it on, after about 8 months of being off, and went through the motions:

So...I pressed ON:

Then "wininit.exe is missing. Press any key to continue"...this I was expecting, since I had to delete wininit.exe in the past because it was messing up my Norton antivirus software.

So I pressed the anykey, and went about it normally. The computer booted up, and I got into windows, but it wasn't recognizing my mouse. So I did a search for the hardware in the "add new hardware" function in the control panel, and it recognized it. However, the mouse still wasn't working, so I restarted the computer.

Then the same thing...except this time when I pressed the anykey, I waited...and waited..and waited. I cooked supper, and came back and still...waiting. The computer didn't go into windows. So I did a hard-reset and booted into safe mode.

So I got into safe mode, and then a big white box popped up:

"ERROR LOADING EXPLORER.EXE. YOU MUST REINSTALL WINDOWS"


What the...?


Anyway, I had the windows ME installation CD so I put that in and booted the computer from that for a reinstall. The CD said that it has to run scandisk first, so I did that, and it said there was a problem with the FAT it could not repair, and thus could not install windows.

I also went to bootdisk.com, and made a floppy with the Windows ME boot on it, but when I put it in my computer and turn it on, it doesn't recognize that it's even there.

So, my main question is: is there any way for me to get back into windows to retrieve my files, or is it a lost cause? I really don't care about the computer at all and am thus going to trash it once I get what I need from it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hang the drive off another computer as a secondary drive and copy the files that way. If you don't care for this computer, then don't waste time fixing Windows ME, it'll be quicker to hang it off another computer.

Thanks for the reply, but how do I hang the drive? I'm pretty green when it comes to computers.

To hang a drive is to temporarily connect it to another computer. In most cases said drive will usually hang, supported only by the power/data cable, hence the term.

How would I temporarily connect the old HD to my new computer?

Will using a USB to USB cable work? For instance, I plug one end into my new laptop, the other end into one of the USB ports on my old 2001 piece of crap, and just see if it recognizes the drive?

Or are there a bunch of other things I need to do? I really have no clue!

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Hi Brooksbane
What Neil means is you have to take the drive out of the old computer.
Next thing is you need is a computer that takes and IDE drive- this is what your old drive will be.
Click on me for picture
You then need to find the map on the drive that will show you how to change the jumper for the drive to be a slave.
this will show you what a map looks like.
Click on me for map picture
You then have to change the jumper on the drive in the computer you are using. All drives are different but you will be looking for a setting as Master with slave or it could have a setting as Master only.
once you have the jumpers set plug the drive back into the machine and plug the old drive on to the same cable
Click on me for cable
connect the power and start the computer. Depending on how old the computer is will depend if it will pick up the drive or if it has to be setup in the bios.
Once you have got your data off you can leave the old drive in your computer and reformat it and you will now have extra drive space.
Cheers
Peterm