[socalfest]

Please don't hate me because I am ignorant or stupid. I have an old Compaq Deskpro with a p2 - an antique but it is all I have. It has been acting up more and more lately. Last week some new icons popped onto my screen while I was on the internet - meet pretty girls, credit card links etc, some kind of hijack thing I guess. Thereafter my internet explorer became extremely slow, and the comp would freeze up after ten min or so. The rest of the programs worked fine, including mail and an online poker link. Yesterday I was clearing off old programs to try and clear up memory as if that might help, some old computers games and software for a cd player I don't use anymore.

Just after I uninstalled one of these programs the screen blinked and I got a warning that the system was unstable or overloaded. I tried rebooting and finally had to unplug the power chord. A few minutes later I restarted the comp and got a warning box that the computer could no longer access the configuration files. All that comes up is my screen saver - nothing else.

Like an idiot I can't find my reboot disk and although found my old windows 98 cd rom it was in the wrong gem case. I think I need a code or something to m,ake it work. Anyway I am totally hosed here and would appreciate any guidance on what I can do to get this comp working again. I am on an extremely limited budget and a friend is letting me use his computer to post this message and check responses

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Hi socalfest, welcome to Geeks to Go!

Use your friends computer to download a Windows 98 bootdisk here: http://www.bootdisk.com

Put this disk in the floppy drive of your computer, and use it to boot your system to as command prompt (A:\). At the command prompt type sfc /scannow, enter. Have your Windows CD handy. When finished restoring files, see if your computer is able to boot normally.

[admin]

Hi socalfest, welcome to Geeks to Go!

Use your friends computer to download a Windows 98 bootdisk here: http://www.bootdisk.com

Put this disk in the floppy drive of your computer, and use it to boot your system to as command prompt (A:\). At the command prompt type sfc /scannow, enter. Have your Windows CD handy. When finished restoring files, see if your computer is able to boot normally.

[socalfest]

Thanks for the advice but I had no luck. I downloaded a disc from the site you suggested but when I typed in sfc/scannow the response was "The following file is missing or corrupted: sfc/scannow. I tried caps, different spacing etc, all no go. I rebooted and hoped something might work anyway but next time round when I had the cdrom for Windows 98 in I received a similar response "The following file is missing or corrupted: Command.com

Not sure what to do now

[admin]

Try sfc.exe /scannow at the command prompt.

[socalfest]

Try sfc.exe /scannow at the command prompt.

Sigh - I tried, along with every variation of spelling I could. Maybe I should just try and put a new hard drive in and try to load an os?

[admin]

If you have your data backed up, it may be a good idea to start fresh. You shouldn't need a new hard drive.

[socalfest]

Ihave most of the files backed up, and I think I have all the drivers, but frankly I am not confident I can wipe clean and put Operating System on myself. Is it terribly complicated?

[admin]

No it's actually pretty easy. Try this link: http://aumha.org/win4/a/clean.php