[Laura F]

I have an old Dell laptop with Windows 98 that was great for internet use. I was planning to give it to my MIL and wanted to delete some big files to free up space. I uninstalled Norton and now I can't load Windows. I keep getting kernel errors and it shuts down during start up. I don't have my 98 boot disk (lost it many years ago). Any options out there? I tried putting a Norton SystemWorks disk in and it won't even check the CD drive.

Any help is appreciated, otherwise I guess I'll have to send this computer to the recycle bin. It can't take any newer OS.

Thanks,
Laura

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Boot the PC and keep tapping F8 right after the beep until you get options, select command prompt only, give it a minute to arrive at the prompt with a flashing cursor then type scanreg /restore then press enter, it will show 5 stored registries, choose one from before you uninstalled Norton and one which is listed as started

[Retired Tech]

Boot the PC and keep tapping F8 right after the beep until you get options, select command prompt only, give it a minute to arrive at the prompt with a flashing cursor then type scanreg /restore then press enter, it will show 5 stored registries, choose one from before you uninstalled Norton and one which is listed as started

[Laura F]

Thanks - I tried this. It does say it has restored to a error free registry, but it still shuts down. Here is the message:
Cannot find device file that may be needed to run Windows or a Windows application. The Windows registry or SYSTEM.INI file refers to this device file, but te device file no longer exists. If you deleted this file on purpose, try uninstalling the associated application using its uninstaller or setup program. If you still want to use the application associated with this device file, try reinstalling that application to replace the missing file.
c:\Program\SYMANTEC\SYMEVNT.386

then I hit enter and get it again with the same message, this file c:\......SYMTD.VXD

when I hit enter again, it gives me the kernel error really quick and then shuts down.

any other ideas??

thanks for the help,
Laura