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re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 4:01 pm Posted by Don (246 messages posted) Hi Linda, My condolences to you. I don't understand what you mean by "occ" and the "A" or "R". Secondly. if you get the hard drive replaced (which should not be needed), you do not get an os with it. Have you tried a boot diskette to see if you get an A:\ prompt? Post back on this and clarify the above. Don On Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 7:21 am, Linda wrote: >I used a registry cleaner program and I must have totally wiped out my OS. I get >nothing but a black screen and occ. the "A" or "R" drive letter. > >Is there any help available? > >Also, if I have the hard drive replaced, will this give me a new OS? > >Thank you in advance. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 5:07 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Hello Don, thank you so much for replying! I don't have a diskette, but I do have a cd (PC for Beginners) that boots the pc to a black screen. While fiddling with this cd, sometimes I get a "A" or "R" prompt, though I have no idea where the "R" came from. It seems my "C" drive is totally gone. Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to give! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 5:15 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Oh, BTW, I forgot to mention that when I use any of my ME cds such as Recovery, Reinstall, etc, only disk one of Recovery functions; the words flashed on the screen are: "Operating system not found" with the others. Did I wipe the OS? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 7:05 pm Posted by Steve (19681 messages posted) ME keeps five backup registries. Try restoring one. Link has info on how to do the restore. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q221512/ If you put in a New Hard Drive, You will need to reinstall Windows. Sounds like that may be over your Head though, and would suggest you find a Friend who knows their way around a Computer to help you out. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 7:43 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Hi Steve, thank you for your reply. I can't use any of those back-ups as I don't get much beyond the black screen and the "a" prompt when the cd lets me go to dos mode. Any ideas as to what "magic" formula I can type at the "a" prompt to clear this up? :) BTW, this pc was given to me a few years ago, and I "stipped it down" and did a reinstall without much problem. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 7:56 pm Posted by Steve (19681 messages posted) If you don't get a Boot Disk, and follow the Directions on the posted link, probably not much you can do. You can download the files to make a Boot Disk, at Bootdisk.com [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 8:16 pm Posted by Alan Masterman (302 messages posted) Linda, what happens if you type "C:" at the A: prompt? Do you get an error message indicating that no such drive exists? If you are able to open a C: prompt, what happens if you type "dir"? Do you get a message similar to "File not found"? If it's the former, then your hard drive may have just died of old age. But the problem could be something as simple as a loose connection (if you've been fiddling with it!), or it might be something in between, like a corrupted primary partition, in which case you will need to run the dreaded FDISK to rebuild it. If you're able to open the C: prompt, but the directory appears to be empty, then the operating system has indeed been wiped and you will have no choice but to re-install. But this is rare; it's quite difficult to wipe an entire operating system accidentally. If you do manage to get the hard drive working again, you should in any case run some disc-checking software to verify its condition (you can download such software for free, from IBM for example). Something must have caused this problem, and it's unlikely to have been the registry cleaner. On Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 7:21 am, Linda wrote: >I used a registry cleaner program and I must have totally wiped out my OS. I get >nothing but a black screen and occ. the "A" or "R" drive letter. > >Is there any help available? > >Also, if I have the hard drive replaced, will this give me a new OS? > >Thank you in advance. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 11:50 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) It's unlikely a registry cleaner would wipe out your entire system. What was the name of the program you used? There are rogue, rip-off registry cleaners. These instr. are applicable, so try this once you get a startup disk. It must be a ME startup disk. Boot with the startup diskette in the drive. Choose 'without' CD ROM support. At the A:\> prompt, type: SYS C: and hit enter. That will copy the needed system files to the hard drive to make it bootable. You should get a brief message, "system transferred". Remove the floppy disk from the drive and reboot by pressing Ctrl_Alt_Del. Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 11:55 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) Another one of those 'registry cleaner wiped out my OS' posts.... LOL Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 4:50 am Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) You must go to the C: prompt. Unless you do that there's no solution possible, other than reinstalling Windows. But there's no point reinstalling Windows. In my experience it's always a waste of time and never solves anything. Better that you start up in DOS mode, and use DOS programs to cure the problem that's affecting Windows. Firstly, get a DOS boot disk for Windows ME from http://www.bootdisk.com. Secondly, start your system with it, and boot to the A: prompt. While booting, use your PAUSE/BREAK key to pause at the initial information screen. Is the system recognising the presence of the hard disk? If the hard disk is not recognised, press DEL (repeatedly, once a second) during the powering-up phase, to enter the BIOS program. That program will usually include a function to reset the computer to factory defaults, so look for that function, and enable it (by following the on-screen instructions). The BIOS program might also have a function to auto-detect the correct settings for the hard disk. Again, look for it, and enable it. Then *save* the new settings. Then exit the BIOS program. Restart the computer, with the floppy disk in the A: drive as before. Thirdly, once you are at the A: prompt, try to switch to your C: drive by typing this DOS command (and then pressing the ENTER key) - C: Possibly the drive letters have somehow been altered, so try every drive letter from D to Z to see whether your drive is still recognised. This is the style of the command to use, for each drive letter from D to Z - DIR D: Notice the space before the "D:" part of this command. Fourthly, if you find your C drive (whatever its letter now is), switch to it. At the command prompt, type this command - SCANREG /RESTORE Notice the space before the forward slash in this command. Then restore a previous backup of the Windows registry (there will be five to choose from). And when you see a "Your registry has been successfully restored" type of message, try restarting the computer normally. Fifthly, if the SCANREG program doesn't run, type this command instead (to see whether you get a directory listing of the files in the disk's root directory)- DIR If this command fails at a command prompt, something very bad is wrong. You should at least get a message that no files were found, even if you don't get a listing of actual files. Sixthly, if the SCANREG program DOES run, but the computer still won't start normally (perhaps you may have no viable registry backups), then try fixing the existing Windows registry instead, by typing this command - SCANREG /FIX Notice the space before the forward slash in this command. Seventhly, to start Windows from the command prompt type this command - C:\WINDOWS\WIN.EXE If your C: drive has somehow become (for example) your Z drive, then you would replace the "C:" with Z: in this command. But follow the instructions posted elsewhere in this thread to use the SYS command to install DOS on your hard disk before you try this step. Sadly, it sounds as though the registry cleaner program you used may have been infected with a virus. This sort of extensive damage is more likely to be caused by a malicious virus program than by a simple clean up of your Windows registry. If you are lucky enough to get Windows running again, the FIRST thing you *must* do is scan the hard disk with an Anti-Virus program. Ed On Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 7:21 am, Linda wrote: >I used a registry cleaner program and I must have totally wiped out my OS. I get nothing but a black screen and occasionally the "A" or "R" drive letter. >Is there any help available? >Also, if I have the hard drive replaced, will this give me a new OS? >Thank you in advance. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 10:36 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Firstly, I again thank all of you for taking the time to help me. Secondly, the program I used is called RegCure; I've used it before, but not as "boldly" as I did this time. I've folled your instructions, and after making and inserting the boot disk, here is where I'm at: after typing "D" as directed, I now have the "C" drive, and the screen shows the info: "Directory of C" and then lists the following: ATTRIB EXE CHKDSK EXE COMMAND COM DEBUG EXE EDIT COM EXT EXE FORMAT COM HELP BAT MSCDEX EXE README TXT SCANDISK EXE SCANDISK INI SYS COM Scandisk "says" there's no problems detected, other things you've told me to try resulted in a "Bad command or file name" statement. I did receive this statement after the disk booted up: Win ME has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT 32 partition." I won't do anything more until I see what advice you all may have at this point. Again, thank you all very much. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 11:01 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) As a follow-up to providing a bit more info that may be of help......I have a bootable cd called "PC for Beginners". It boots up the pc and provides sections on the menu that may help troubleshoot this problem. The contents are: System Analysis, Hard Disk Tools, Windows Recovery (doesn't work), Windows Installation (doesn't work), Data recovery (doesn't work), Password Recovery, MS Product Key Finder, Boot to DOS, Restart (doesn't work), Help (no help). A couple of more things I noticed is that when it boots up, the info that's flashed on the screen for a few seconds about the system had these two statements: "System BIOS shadowed" and "Video BIOS shadowed". Also, the ME System Restoration Kit cds don't work, neither does the Backup cd that came with the pc. HOWEVER, what I found interesting was that only disk one of the Recovery cd worked. When inserting part two of the disk as instructed, I get again the black screen with the statement: "Operating system not found". [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 11:17 am Posted by Steve (19681 messages posted) That's what I'm saying.:) [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 11:23 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) One more post.....Ed, I did as you suggested re: the BIOS system.....having it check the correct configuration, clicking on "Save" and rebooting with the floppy. When it rebooted I again got the black screen with the message: "Operating system not found". [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 11:33 am Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) There are some rogue registry cleaners out there, Steve, and this is one of them. Think Rogue anti-spyware apps. That doesn't mean we should avoid anit-spyware programs, cuz they'll infect our system. :) She said she used RegCure. This is one of those that claims to fix all these "problems" (likely non-existent) problems! Have a look at this page. http://www.google.com/search?q=RegCure& Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 11:44 am Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) Hellooooo.... Did you try my suggestion at all?? If that doesn't work, considering the program you used, I'd do a repair/reinstall. Jack Gulley's instructions: Reinstall ME from CABS Warning: Don't ever use a program that makes those wild claims to fix all your registry problems. They're rip-offs, rogue. See this page on RegCure? I can't imagine falling for something like that in the first place. http://www.google.com/search?q=RegCure& Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 1:39 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Hi Carol! Yes, I did as you suggested....I'm sorry, I thought I addressed it. This is the statement I received: "Required parameter is missing". [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 2:11 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) O.K......I've about had it with this pc, looks like I messed up totally, and learned a lesson. If you kind folks tell me there's no point in taking it to a tech for a new hard drive (to replace the OS, if possible, which one of you already said does not happen), then I'll just have to throw it away. Meanwhile I'm just trying different things to see the result.....I just did a FDISK, and the pc informed me my CD-ROM is now "E", and now it's showing the "A" prompt. Should I type anything at the prompt other than "Good bye?" Thank you all so much again. Lesson learned........ [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 2:16 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) OK, Linda, wasn't sure whether you had. The command needs to be typed exactly in order for it to work, SYS C: (note the space and colon) Note upper/lower case doesn't matter. If you still get an error message, try running Scandisk at the prompt: SCANDISK C: If that doesn't help, try FDISK /MBR to repair the Master Boot Record. (NOTE: that can make things worse, in some cases) Hit Enter. Then type the Sys C: command again. Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 2:25 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) The computer itself is NOT the problem, so you don't need to throw it out. You might want to get hands on help though, but try my most recent instr. Plus, there is still that option to do a repair/reinstall of ME. Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Friday, April 20, 2007 at 4:43 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Yes Carol, I did the SYS C: as you said, and still got the parameters missing statement. I'll do the FDISK /MBR tomorrow (BTW, that's a space after FDISK, right?) I'm puzzled about the your statement re: a repair/reinstall, though....I mentioned none of my disks that came with the system work....I just keep getting the message about no operating system found....what would I use to accomplish this? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 4:52 am Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) Linda, Although you have run into a problem that you don't have the knowledge to deal with yourself, the situation is one that can easily be solved. There is no physical damage to the computer, it seems, and the faults you have mentioned are all fixable. However, some suggestions that I could make would fix the computer but would lose you all of your files and data on the hard disk. Please state whether you want a solution that will fix the fault regardless of this, or whether you want a solution that will enable you to recover your files intact from that disk. Do NOT use the FDISK /MBR command at this stage. A little more analysis is needed to decide whether that is the best solution. The FDISK command is one that can lose you all your data files. The reason why some of the repair tools on your CDs don't work is that they need to use some Windows ME functions, and you don't currently have access to Windows. But maybe we can fix that too. Ed On Friday, April 20, 2007 at 4:43 pm, Linda wrote: Yes Carol, I did the SYS C: as you said, and still got the parameters missing statement. I'll do the FDISK /MBR tomorrow (BTW, that's a space after FDISK, right?) I'm puzzled about your statement re: a repair/reinstall, though....I mentioned none of my disks that came with the system work....I just keep getting the message about no operating system found....what would I use to accomplish this? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 6:54 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Hi Ed! I'm pleased to know that you and Carol believe the pc is salvagable, as long as it isn't too costly. I don't care about any data/files lost, so, yes, please, I would appreciate any help you would care to give. My humble thanks again........ [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 10:18 am Posted by C K (6157 messages posted) At this point sadly, a forum won't be able to get you up and running. We don't know what media you really have and if it is corrupt or not. You really need the help of someone experienced and with the proper tools (and possible good software copies) to fix your problems. Operating system not found is referring either to the hard drive (most likely) or your boot disks (could be both). First step is to make sure the computer is booting to find a floppy disk with the correct tools/utilities on it, otherwise you will be getting all of the errors you are seeing now. It's called the boot order in the BIOS and will list the order that the computer looks for drives. Most of the time (after the system is running correctly) the floppy drive is demoted below the hard drive (C:) so that the machine will boot a little quicker. I think at this point an experienced user or tech will be required to help you in a timely manor. Otherwise, it will just be frustrating and you could do even more damage to your software, and possibley to the hardware. Sounds like your hardware is OK. It just needs to be reconfigured a little so that you can more easily work out your software issues. On Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 6:54 am, Linda wrote: >Hi Ed! I'm pleased to know that you and Carol believe the pc is salvagable, as long >as it isn't too costly. > >I don't care about any data/files lost, so, yes, please, I would appreciate any help >you would care to give. > >My humble thanks again........ [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 12:12 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) "Although you have run into a problem that you don't have the knowledge to deal with yourself," You don't have the knowledge to deal with it either, Ed. ..." the situation is one that can easily be solved." RIGHT, that's why you're leading her on this wild goose chase. FDISK doesn't erase anything, and the command I suggested doesn't even come close to wiping out data! Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 12:15 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) I've been grasping at straws to try to get some sort of results. However, I wouldn't give you instr. to wipe out your data, i.e. FDISK as Ed implied. I wouldn't waste any more time trying to deal with this through this forum, or... take any further advice from Ed on this problem. FDISK /MBR only rewrites the Master Boot Record, and far as I know, the only case where that may make matters worse is if there's more than one partition on a drive. Linda, the repair/reinstall I'm referring to (I posted a link to Jack Gulley's instr), is to do an over the top install of ME from the command prompt. Jack Gulley's instructions: Reinstall ME from CABS FYI, here's his website, and I'd bookmark it for future ref, Linda. He was very knowledgeable and experienced with ME and all areas of computing in general. Windows ME Fixes I'd forgotten you would need to locate your ME Product Key first, so I've been trying to locate Jack's instr. for that. I finally came across this thread on another forum (in which Jack had responded). See instr. by Mesich on locating Product Key from command prompt.... CK is right, this is too complex to try to deal with through a forum. If you have a savvy friend acquaintance who'd be willing to help... Print out the instr. for locating the Product Key and reinstalling ME from CAB files. There may (should) be a set of CAB install files on your hard disk from which you can reinstall ME from. CABS are compressed setup files. Doing that would repair your ME installation, and leave all data intact. You would need to reinstall all Windows ME updates, though. Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] Edit.. re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 12:41 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) My link didn't show up.... See instr. by Mesich on locating Product Key from command prompt.... http://w.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/42005.html Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 12:45 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) You're absolutely right about getting this taken care of with hands on help. The Sys C: command is appropriate in situations like this. I did tell her, it must be a boot (startup) disk for the exact same version of ME installed. I've seen it used many times (by knowledgeable/experienced professionals, and users) and have suggested it myself in other similar situations, i.e. Operating system not found message, with successful results. I wouldn't post instr. that aren't applicable in some way. :) Or, if she can manage the repair/reinstall instr. herself, that's certainly worth a try and should take care of any registry/OS corruption that registry cleaner may have caused... without a need for any other disks. It kind of seems unlikely there's an issue with any of her hardware, since this problem occurred after running a Rogue registry cleaner which wiped out "who-knows-what-all".=( Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 12:50 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) Hi Linda, For the moment, we won't worry about the FDISK /MBR command. I'll just give you some simple instructions to try to get your computer working normally. I urge you to read this entire post through carefully, before doing anything, and make sure that you understand it. We are going to try (a) partitioning, and then (b) reformatting, your hard disk. Because this will *destroy* all data on the hard disk, it is really an action of last resort. We are doing this because you reported that your tests have found that there is *no* FAT32 partition on the disk: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winme/1177090600 What this means is that the partition information in the sector containing the master boot record (MBR) has been damaged or destroyed. You will need a Win ME bootable floppy disk (e.g. from http://www.bootdisk.com); and you may need to add the FORMAT.COM and FDISK.EXE programs to this floppy if they are not on it already. Naturally you cannot restore Win ME from CABs, as you have NO access to your operating system or to any of the files on your hard disk, due to a damaged or wiped primary DOS partition! First, a precaution. If you have any other hard disk(s) on your IDE cables, unplug them (both the data and the power cable) before proceeding. Take proper anti-static precautions whenever you open the computer's case. You must be grounded (earthed) always: keep the computer plugged into the wall mains, but turn the mains power OFF so that the bare metal of the case is earthed through the mains cable's earth wire into the wall socket. Touch the bare metal inside the case with your bare hand, to earth yourself, BEFORE touching anything inside the computer. Step 1 is to partition the hard disk. So boot to DOS. Then run the FDISK program. You have to create a primary DOS partition. At stage one, say YES to the screen that asks if you wish to enable large disk support. (If you answer [Y] on that screen, FDISK will use a FAT-32 partition table, which is the type you need!) At stage two, the next screen that appears, choose option 1, "Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive". At stage three, the next screen, choose option 1, "Create Primary DOS Partition". At stage four, the next screen, FDISK prompts you as to how large you want to make this partition. If you do not enter a number, it will make the partition as large as it can. We’re going to make it the maximum size allowed, so just press ENTER to continue. (At the same time as FDISK creates the partition it will make it Active.) The partitioning process will take a few minutes, but you'll see a visual display of progress on the screen. And that's all you need to do to create a single partition that uses all the space on your hard disk. So once the partitioning process has finished successfully, press ESC to exit FDISK. Step 2 is to use the FORMAT program to format the partition you just created as Drive C: and this is pretty straightforward. At the A: prompt type this command- FORMAT C: and be sure to leave a space before the C. The formatting process will take a few minutes, but again you'll see a visual display of progress on the screen. You should now have a hard disk which is partitioned, as one FAT32 partition, and that is formatted as drive C:, and it will now accept your attempt to install Windows ME onto it. You will need an installation CD for a *full* install of Windows ME; an upgrade version won't work, because there's no operating system on the hard disk now. Step 3 is therefore to put the installation CD in the CD-ROM drive and reinstall Windows ME. Your ME reinstall CD is the logical first choice, I would suggest. You will also need a valid Microsoft serial number. Do a Google search to find one on the internet, if necessary, but there should be one printed on the installation CD's documents. This step 3 will cure the "Operating system not found" error. Finally, a word about the "magic" command, FDISK /MBR. This command is an undocumented DOS command; MBR is short for Master Boot Record, and the MBR sector is the first sector on the hard disk. The command FDISK /MBR overwrites the first 446 of the 512 bytes in sector 1 of the disk with zeros, erasing the executable code and data strings that may currently be there. The remainder of the 512 bytes are left alone. FDISK /MBR can only replace the executable information with zeros; it does not restore the code needed to get your computer working again. There *are* procedures which can restore your MBR sector, without partitioning or formatting the disk. But they are a bit complex, and the degree of success depends on the nature and extent of the damage to the MBR sector and to the data structure on the disk; but it's not impossible. Even the complete loss of the partition table and both FATs is not necessarily fatal, if the actual data itself is still largely intact. I don't claim to currently understand the nature and extent of the damage you've sustained; but there are DOS utilities available that can analyse the hard disk and build up a picture of what is wrong. The one other thing that FDISK can do for you, though, is show you the current partition data (i.e. the current state of the hard disk), by typing this command at the A: prompt - FDISK /STATUS Ed On Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 6:54 am, Linda wrote: >Hi Ed! I'm pleased to know that you and Carol believe the pc is salvagable, as long as it isn't too costly. >I don't care about any data/files lost, so, yes, please, I would appreciate any help you would care to give. >My humble thanks again........ [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 2:46 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) Simple instructions?? Linda should get hands on help from someone, and she has NO OS disk. Trying to help an experienced user partition, format and reload an OS...through the forum... just plain stupid and irresponsible. "What this means is that the partition information in the sector containing the master boot record (MBR) has been damaged or destroyed." No kidding?! That's what the FDISK /MBR command is for. It shouldn't hurt anything to try it, under the circumstances, but she needs the correct boot disk for her system. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 4:02 pm Posted by C K (6157 messages posted) I'm wondering if her floppies and/or other media are good etc. (pressed CD's being the exception if they are not scratched) I'm having a lot of floppies go bad in the past several years, many that were MS originals from the 90's. Good thing I have images backed up so I can make new ones. Luckily, I don't have to work on that many 9X systems anymore... Floppies that customers are bringing me I find are bad when I do have to work on a system, so that's why they are having problems trying to reload/repair their own systems.. Problem really gets bad when it is manufacturer recovery CDRs burnt when the machine was new. Early CDR media other than the expensive gold stuff is failing left and right IME... :-( So many problems.. So little time.. ;-) [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 7:01 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) The fact that people are taking the time to help me with this problem is amazing and humbling; at the risk of being redundant, I again offer my sincere thanks to each of you. It is correct that I'm not "puter savy", so I will ultimately heed the suggestion to put the pc in the hands of a tech. I will however, attempt to follow the suggestions made in the more recent posts as I've done with the previous ones. RE: the status of my disks/floppy.....I'm using the boot disk that Steve suggested I make. The CDs that came with the pc (Recovery, Backup, Reinstall, etc.) are in pristine condition. When I was given this pc a year ago, I used them to erase/reinstall ME without difficulty.. For what it may be worth, here's where I'm at now: When I boot up with the boot disk, I get the "A" prompt followed by the message: "The following file is missing or corrupted: COMMAND.COM. Type the name of the Command Interpreter (e.g., C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)". No matter WHAT I type after the "A" prompt, I get the same message, only the "file is missing or corrupted, etc" statement is followed by whatever it is I have typed. Perhaps this info may provide an "AHA!" moment to someone here, indicating a specific step to be taken. Otherwise, I'll give it to a tech.... :) [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 7:38 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) At this time......... Ed, I followed your instructions, and it went well until I typed the "Format C:" command (including the space) at the "A" prompt. Then all I get is "Invalid drive specification". [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 7:44 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) ....just did it again.....got the message "No space to create a DOS partition". I take that to mean a new hard drive is needed. Guess that's the end.........thank you all!! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 7:57 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) BTW, I also tried Carol's advice, only got the "bad command", etc. statement. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 8:17 am Posted by C K (6157 messages posted) The floppy you tried to create didn't do it properly. The system can't do anything without the command.com so you are dead in the water without it on the floppy or the HDD. There could be a variety of reasons including a hardware failure of some kind.. This could range from a bad motherboard (or PSU or memory), to a bad drive, to a bad program that you downloaded to make the disk. This is where I recommended someone with known good media and tools to try and diagnose your problems. Floppies often work well one day and fail the next, same with drives. CDR media can fail too, but I suspect the discs you have are probably pressed so they won't fail unless damaged, or were bad to begin with which isn't your case.. Either the utilities on the floppy are not there or are corrupt, or your HDD is not being identified during POST for some reason and can't be seen by the format utility. I would say it's time for the help from a Pro. That's a tough one on older computers as the cost to fix them is more than buying a new machine. (unless someone volunteers like I do for Seniors and others in my area) Good Luck though!! :-) On Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 7:57 am, Linda wrote: >BTW, I also tried Carol's advice, only got the "bad command", etc. statement. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 1:58 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) I don't mean to discredit Ed for all his help, but you don't even have an ME installation disk do you? There's no point in going through those steps, if you have no OS to install. Plus, once you wipe everything out, there's no way to retrieve your original product key. Normally mfgrs. do not provide anything but a set of restore disks, so you can restore a system back to factory state, i.e. as it was when you first purchased it. Those are only for that particular system. You haven't said where you got the boot disk from. Was it one you had lying around, or did you download an image and create one? This is the one you should use. If that fails, then you know it's not the boot disk. Windows Me OEM http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 2:11 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) That's not what it means. It just means there's a partition on the disk already that's taking up most of the aqvailable space. Go out of sequence, and use the FDISK /STATUS command to find out the current partitioning information, and post it here. On Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 7:44 am, Linda wrote: >....just did it again.....got the message "No space to create a DOS partition". I >take that to mean a new hard drive is needed. > >Guess that's the end.........thank you all!! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 3:44 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) I took another look through this thread to see what I missed re boot disk. You were asked to d/l a DOS boot disk. That won't work with the instr. I gave you. That requires a ME (not DOS) disk, a ME OEM boot disk. Anyhow, I'm done here! Good luck, Linda. Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 4:18 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Thank you Carol! BTW, I do have the ME OEM boot disk from that site. I made it when Steve suggested I do so. Ed. in response to your request, here's what came up: FIXED DISK DRIVE STATUS DISK: 1, DRV: C: Mbytes: 5734, 5711 FREE (nothing listed under the heading "FREE") Usage: 100% This is listed in column form which doesn't show up here in the post when typed that way. ). [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 4:27 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) .....also, down the bottom of the screen is the info: 1 Mbyte =1048576 bytes. Then there's the "A" prompt and blinking cursor. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 7:00 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) You said: FIXED DISK DRIVE STATUS DISK: 1, DRV: C: Mbytes: 5734, 5711 FREE (nothing listed under the heading "FREE") Usage: 100% This means that hard disk number 1 is partitioned as one drive which is formatted as drive C: and that the disk's size is 5,734 MB (i.e. 6 GB), of which 5,711 MB (i.e. 100% of the disk space) is assigned to drive C: ! In other words, this is a 6 GB disk, which has only one partition that uses all the disk and is called C: "No space to create DOS partition" is not an error! There is definitely no unused space on this disk, so naturally you can't create a second partition on it. When you followed my instructions, you successfully created a C: drive that used all the disk, as I intended. I now ask a deadly question. Is this truly a 6 GB disk? (If it isn't, you're in big trouble, of course). There is only one approach that I can think of now. Use FDISK to delete all the partition information. If you run FDISK again, you will see that at stage 2 it offers you the option to *delete* the existing partition. Do so. Then use the command FDISK /STATUS to check that all partition information has been *successfully* deleted. Then use the command FDISK /MBR to wipe the master boot record clean (well, the bit that it does wipe clean at least). Then you need to 'zero fill' the disk. This is a process that writes zeros to every sector on the disk. You get this program from the website of the disk's manufacturer. So if it's a Seagate disk, go to their website; etc. There are 3rd party programs that will do this, but the best way is always with the manufacturer's program. You may need to download a disk utility program that has many functions, one of which is writing zeros to the drive. It usually isn't a seperate program, so just download whatever they offer by way of disk tools. The zeroing option should be in there somewhere when you run the program. You usually need one 3.5 inch floppy disk for this step. The error you've run up against is probably being caused by rogue data on the disk; so the zero filling process should eliminate the problem data, and allow a normal partitioning to take place. If you're not offered a zero filling option, use any tool that offers to blank, or fill, or low-level format the disk. (Yes, I know that it is in fact impossible to low level format a modern disk, but some manufacturers offer tools that do something similar, to which they like to give that description.) Then (once the zero filling is done, which will take perhaps half an hour) go back to my original instructions, and try again: partition the disk, then try to format it as drive C: My tip is that after you have used FDISK to partition it, but BEFORE you format it, you run the FDISK /STATUS command again, to check the result of the partitioning. Write down the information that this gives you, so that you can post it here if necessary. Also, run the FDISK program (type FDISK) and check the partitioning information from within that program, to make sure that the partitioning stage correctly marked the partition as Active (the letter A is displayed against the active partition), because you can't install an operating system unless the partition is first set as "active". The partitioning step should have done this automatically, but it is best to check. Until the FORMAT command has executed, and completed, the C: drive does not exist. Any attempt to change directory to C: will fail, and the command DIR C: will also fail, since no drive exists until after the formatting process has created it. Sometimes you have to type the format command as - FORMAT C: /S instead of FORMAT C: so try this alternative if the other doesn't work, but if you get into this step you will have a slight problem, as it almost certainly means you're using the wrong type of bootable floppy disk! At the end of the day, if you still can't format the disk you might have a faulty motherboard. Or you might have the hard disk wrongly connected to the m/board on your IDE cables. We will cross that bridge when we come to it! Ed On Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 4:27 pm, Linda wrote: >.....also, down the bottom of the screen is the info: 1 Mbyte =1048576 bytes. > >Then there's the "A" prompt and blinking cursor [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: PS Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 8:14 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) In an earlier posting, you said: I've folled your instructions, and after making and inserting the boot disk, here is where I'm at: after typing "D" as directed, I now have the "C" drive, and the screen shows the info: "Directory of C" This is of course impossible! You can't possibly have changed directory to D: and then given the command DIR and gotten the message "Directory of C". You might have gotten the message "Directory of D"! Please confirm what you actually did. I feel this is an important clue to what is really going on. In an earlier posting, you said: I did receive this statement after the disk booted up: Win ME has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT 32 partition." But you claimed in that same posting that you had gotten a valid directory listing of C: - which is of course impossible. A WinME boot disk can only access a FAT or FAT32 partition. You can't get a directory listing of a non-DOS partition with it. In combination with the other impossibility (see above), this indicates that the computer is recognising your C: drive as drive D: (and therefore, presumably, is recognising your CD-ROM drive as drive C:). Although I'm loath to believe that you would not recognise that such a simple tranposition had occured, please confirm whether you have been unplugging any devices from the IDE cables. An incorrect connection to the IDE bus is the most usual cause of this type of drive transposition. Ed [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Major Mistake Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 8:31 pm Posted by C K (6157 messages posted) Not knowing exactly what media you have without seeing, I can tell you that the original MS OEM boot floppy for the genuine MS OEM install CD isn't the same as what is on bootdisk.com, at least not the last I checked. If you have a genuine branded MS OEM CD, it won't install on a formated drive IME. It is for a new computer/hard drive that is unpartitioned/unformated, and is stated so on the floppy label. In my experience, if the genuine MS OEM floppy disk sees a drive that isn't blank, it will terminate. I installed hundreds of them and this was always the case. The OEM floppy from MS would auto start the install process from the CD ROM. The OEM floppy from bootdisk.com wouldn't. You had to start it manually with the correct commands when you selected startup with CD ROM support. You are getting some good steps from Ed, but you are probably dealing with some unknown issues that can't be seen from the forum.. On Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 4:27 pm, Linda wrote: >.....also, down the bottom of the screen is the info: 1 Mbyte =1048576 bytes. > >Then there's the "A" prompt and blinking cursor. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 8:36 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) To see a more visual explanation of the FDISK program screens, take a look at this site - http://fdisk.radified.com It explains in detail how to use the various FDISK options, and I think will help you to understand. Ed [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Monday, April 23, 2007 at 6:38 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Ed, I got as far as the "Low level formatting", then when checking the status of the FDISK I received the message: "No fixed disks present" then the "A" prompt. I'm going to stop with this.....I'm totally confused. Also, what I posted about info received is correct, even though it's contradictory....... I do thank you sincerely for your efforts to help me!!! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Monday, April 23, 2007 at 1:54 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) It sounds as though you may have a hardware fault, and if so the likelihood is that it's a faulty motherboard. The hard disk controller chip on the motherboard is probably faulty if it is reporting to FDISK that there are no hard disks present. A replacement motherboard might be the answer. Ed On Monday, April 23, 2007 at 6:38 am, Linda wrote: >Ed, I got as far as the "Low level formatting", then when checking the status of >the FDISK I received the message: "No fixed disks present" then the "A" prompt. > >I'm going to stop with this.....I'm totally confused. > >Also, what I posted about info received is correct, even though it's contradictory....... > >I do thank you sincerely for your efforts to help me!!! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 12:30 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) The only obvious thing I can think of is to try this command now at the A: prompt- FORMAT C: or alternatively this command - FORMAT C: /S in the hope that the drive can still be formatted, after the zero fill option has (hopefully) completely blanked the disk. Might not work; but it's the only alternative I can think of to assuming that you have a motherboard fault. Ed On Monday, April 23, 2007 at 6:38 am, Linda wrote: >Ed, I got as far as the "Low level formatting", then when checking the status of >the FDISK I received the message: "No fixed disks present" then the "A" prompt. > >I'm going to stop with this.....I'm totally confused. > >Also, what I posted about info received is correct, even though it's contradictory....... > >I do thank you sincerely for your efforts to help me!!! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 7:21 am Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Ed, When I did that, I got "Bad command". Since I'll probably turn this over to a tech, or, if it is the motherboard, just throw it out, I feel there's nothing to lose if I try something a bit different, and if you are willing to advise....... I have a utility cd called "PC Beginners". It's a bootable cd. I'll list in my next post the sections listed under main menu and then list what options are listed under the headings. This way, you might have a better idea as to what's at my disposal, and you could advise from that stand point. I'll do nothing until you review what's available, then advise me as how to proceed. In other words, you tell me what to click on, relay to you the info on the screen, then you advise me as to the next step, if you are agreeable to this last ditch effort. It might either help me fix this on a step by step basis, or alert you early on that the problem is a hardware failure. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 12:44 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Ed, I hope I'm not driving you crazy, but after I said I was finished with this pc, I went back to just "goofing around" with it some more, figuring I couldn't do any more damage....... Well, here's what happened.....I was able to format. I got drive "C" back when typing that letter at the "A" prompt as you instructed me to in your April 20th post (listing the 7 steps). Then I typed "SCANREG /RESTORE at the "C" prompt and received the "bad command" statement. Then I continued with your instructions and typed the SCANREG \FIX and received the same info. At the C:\DIR prompt this is the info received: Volume in drive C is Y. Volume Serial number is: etc. Directory of C:\. File not found. 5,715.07 MB free. With the C:\WINDOWS\WIN.EXE command I got the "bad command" statement. So that's where I'm at right now. Is this progress? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 1:42 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Ed, I'm now able to do a surface scan of drive C. When it's finished, I'll post the info....... [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 2:05 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Scan completed..... "1,463,058 clusters. 1,463,058 clusters examined. 0 found bad. ScanDisk did not find any problems on Drive C." Under "More Info" it said "Drive C and Drive D had no errors". [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 2:22 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) Ed, when I exited the surface scan program it brought me to the "A" prompt. I typed in SYS C and here is the info I received: "Cannot find the system file in the standard locations on drive C:. SYS can only be used on drive C: to attempt a repair of an already existing installation of Windows. Use Windows SETUP to make drive C: bootable." Ed, remember.....I said the cds I have with this pc are: System Restoration Kit (2 cds), Recovery and Software Backup. Do I use one of these?, [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 12:28 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) Hi Linda, Sorry I was not able to get back to you before. BTW, I'm going to reply here, in one go, to all of your five posts dated April 25th. Firstly, your post of 12:44pm: SCANREG /RESTORE and SCANREG /FIX will fail if the SCANREG.EXE program is not available. Try to access the folder C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND as this is where that program should be. Also, type the command PATH at the C: prompt, and this should tell you what folders DOS is looking in. If the SCANREG.EXE program is not in one of these folders, you must type the full path to the file, thus : C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SCANREG.EXE /RESTORE I hope both those steps will fail! But best to be sure. If the partitioning and the formatting steps worked properly, you should now have a completely blank hard disk, with no files or folders on it. (This is why the WIN.EXE program won't run: that program isn't there at present.) Secondly, your post of 2:05pm: The SCANDISK result is good, except that I was NOT expecting to see a reference to a drive D: as you only formatted drive C: so please try to access drive D: and if you can then please try the DIR command and let me know the result. I suppose, with any luck, drive D: is your CD drive. But that wouldn't normally be "seen" by SCANDISK. BTW, I need to know something: do YOU believe that this hard disk is a 6 GB disk? Or something very close to that size, anyway. I asked this before, and it's quite important. Thirdly, your post of 2:22pm: The SYS C: failure is NORMAL. You haven't yet put an operating system on the hard disk. I'm afraid that I'm not familiar with your System Restoration Kit (2 cds), Recovery, and Software Backup CDs. So we must employ some guesswork now. But my guess, from the description, is that the System Restoration Kit CDs might restore Windows, so try them first. If that doesn't do the job, then try the Recovery CD. Recovery CDs can be damaging to your data; but as there is NO data on your newly blanked hard disk, it's pretty safe to try this CD in these special circumstances. Probably the software backup CD contains programs that you can reinstall AFTER you've gotten Windows back on the computer. Ultimately, you can always buy a full install CD version of Windows ME on E B A Y for a few dollars, if all these CDs fail. But if so do remember to *avoid* the cheaper upgrade installation CD, as you CANNOT use an upgrade CD because you have no operating system on the hard disk to upgrade from! Ed On Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at 2:22 pm, Linda wrote: >Ed, when I exited the surface scan program it brought me to the "A" prompt. I typed >in SYS C and here is the info I received: "Cannot find the system file in the standard >locations on drive C:. SYS can only be used on drive C: to attempt a repair of an >already existing installation of Windows. Use Windows SETUP to make drive C: bootable." > > Ed, remember.....I said the cds I have with this pc are: System Restoration Kit >(2 cds), Recovery and Software Backup. Do I use one of these?, [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 1:13 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) What are you thinking? You have her format the disk, so any recovery disks are now worthless. There's nothing to recover anymore. She may have been able to get one for her system, for a few dollars, had she contacted the PC mfgr. Instead, now she should take her chances and try to locate a ME installation disk, not knowing whether there's a hardware failure? Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 1:36 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) Since Linda hasn't even tried the System Restoration Kit CDs yet, its premature to say they won't work! It's pointless you chipping in with criticism of the procedure that I outlined in full days ago. You should have made your point at the time, when I was discussing with Linda what the best course to take was. Linda, you already have the four CDs that the manufacturer supplied, so go ahead and try them, as per my previous post. I have already mentioned that this may be a motherboard failure, so if the cost of a Win ME full install CD is more than you want to pay I wouldn't blame you for rejecting that suggestion! But a new motherboard will probably cost a bit more than a Win ME install CD anyway. Ed On Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 1:13 pm, Carol J wrote: > >What are you thinking? You have her format the disk, so any recovery disks are now >worthless. There's nothing to recover anymore. > >She may have been able to get one for her system, for a few dollars, had she contacted >the PC mfgr. Instead, now she should take her chances and try to locate a ME installation >disk, not knowing whether there's a hardware failure? > > > > >color="006699">Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 2:13 pm Posted by Ms. Eagle (32675 messages posted) I mentioned it before, and restore disks do not work on a formatted drive. There is NOTHING left to restore, and you've had total disregard for everything C K has said. Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 4:28 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) O.K.!!!!! (Deep breath here.......) ALL the cds failed. (BTW Ed, to answer your question, yes, I believe it is 6 GB. Somewhere in the maze of testing done for days on end, that number showed up several times in the test results). I assumed earlier today (apparently incorrectly) after checking the site a few times that people here pretty much gave up on my plight. I know that I DID!!! So, when I didn't see any posts, I figured all was lost, and frankly, my mind was in a knot trying to deal with this mess. I was totally confused and resigned myself to tossing it all, and considering my lesson learned re: messing with registry/cures/fixes and so forth. As Carol pointed out, they are a BIG no-no!! BTW, this is a laptop pc. It was on it's way to the trash bin this afternoon. I was hopelessly confused and frustrated. I had one hour of free time today, so I decided to "play around" with it just for giggles before it went into the trash bin. I did a format. I tossed in my Win 98 cd and THIS time it worked!! It actually installed!!! (Try to understand the excitement of seeing the Windows logo after days of a black screen with the words "No operating system found" or "invalid disk", "incorrect parameter", "bad command", etc.). Caught up in the fever of the moment I tossed in the Win 98 cd....it also worked. If this little pc works, WHATEVER it turns out to be, I'm content. Not suprisingly, the caveat is that there's no volume nor am I able to complete download of my MSN, nor do I have 32 bit color 'cause it doesn't recognize the modem. When I redid my desktop 98SE awhile back, the same thing happened. A trip to the pc doc rendered an inexpensive modem/drivers replacement and all was well. I'm hoping for the same "cure" with this replacement. As I'm sure is obvious, I'm not pc savvy, but I'm willing to learn. If I understand correctly, I wiped the OS, if I did a partition/format and installed a ME OS DISK program I might have a ME today. (Correct?). This has been extremely frustrating, confusing and fatiguing to me, but many things have been learned. I must say, one more time, that I'm OVERWHELMED by the selfless giving of time, patience and kindness shown to me while I grappled with this problem. Thank you ALL, especially Ed and Carol....I don't know what else to say except, simply, "THANK YOU!!!!" Ed, I nominate you "Patron Saint of Pitiful 'Puter People"!!! :) [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:31 pm Posted by Linda (31 messages posted) I meant to say, "caught up in the fever of the moment, I also tossed in a Win 98SE cd........." BTW, how do you manage to have paragraphs, indentations and spaces b/n paragraphs? When I type it that way the post shows up as it did in the previous post. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: FDISK Friday, April 27, 2007 at 1:46 pm Posted by Ed (603 messages posted) Well the "Patron Saint" is grateful for your kind words! :) I actually thought the situation was hopeless; but you seemed so willing to try anything that I thought it worth a go. Glad it came out okay in the end. Yes, you wiped the o/s. Yes, if you did a partition/format and installed a WinME installation CD you might have an ME o/s today, instead of Win98SE. Silly me! I should have thought to ask you if you had a Win98 CD anywhere about your person!! Well done for spotting my mistake. To hang on to your paragraphs, indentation etc when posting here, all you need to do is tick the box that says "Check this box to preserve your spacing", before you click the "Continue -->" button. Ed On Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:31 pm, Linda wrote: >I meant to say, "caught up in the fever of the moment, I also tossed in a Win 98SE >cd........." > >BTW, how do you manage to have paragraphs, indentations and spaces b/n paragraphs? >When I type it that way the post shows up as it did in the previous post. [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows Me Discussion Forum