Help please

[Pengineer]

I'm running Win ME, PIII 733 with 640MB ram.
Its been going a bit rough lately. Every time I switch on I get "updating new hardware settings" dialogue which ALWAYS locks up, the only cure is to reboot in safe mode, but no matter what I do the same thing always happens.
I tried reloading windows to no avail.
After I start in safe, can I somehow continue to keep loading to get it all up and running?
To make matters worse my floppy drive appears to be U/S as it won't read my start up or rescue discs and appears invisible during boot up and at other times.
I'm writing this on my other machine.

[tony draper]

Don't know if the windows ME cd is a bootable disk, try altering your bios to boot from cdrom and boot from the windows cd.
Re load windows over the top, done that and cured problems a few times myself, problem is it may retain your present registry settings and your troubles may be stemming from there, and you end up with the same probs.
Sorry I'm not familiar with Me, just win98 and 2k.
Good luck.

[TR4A]

Are you running Norton Utilities or System Works?

[DanJ]

Have you recently installed that x-tra ram? Win98/ME have serious issues with any RAM over 512mb. This can cause you to lose your IDE controllers, FD controller etc at startup. Their is a workaround, do a search in microsofts knowledge base on their website. The easiest solution is to knock your RAM down to 512mb as WIN98/ME will never be able to utilize it effeciently anyways. It's simply a case of non-optimized code that was originally written for Win 95. 512mb of ram cost close to $20,000.00 when 95 was released, so their wasn't a need for code to make use of it. WIN ME was optimized to use up to the 512mb, but not beyond, as the OS simply cant utilize it. WIN 2000 or in my case XP can utilize upwards of 2GB of ram!!!

[Evo7]

DanJ

I've just gone and got 1Gb of RAM for my home machine (at £60, I thought why not?), which is a P4 1.6GHz running Win98. Haven't installed it yet, though, so now I'm worried. Should I upgrade the OS before installing the RAM - and which would be better, XP or Win2k??

Cheers.

[Pengineer]

Yes I have recently updated the RAM but it has been working fine until now.
I've managed to get it up and running following a re install of ME over the other system but when I try to add my modem or anything else it won't boot up, I just get the updating system settings message, then it freezes.
No I don't have Norton on it now, do you think its worth installing it?
Does anyone have the link to the MS troubleshooter for the ram issue?

[fobotcso]

Pengineer, bad luck!

My Sony with WinME has a "Restore" facility that I have used a couple of times successfully. It takes you to earlier configurations and you can choose which one you want to go to. I believe this to be a WinME Accessory not a Sony Accessory.

If you Boot in "Safe Mode" and then go:

Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Restore

You can select "Restore my computer to an earlier time"

The restore points will have been selected automatically for you and if you go back far enough you will probably find one that works.

Has worked for me twice now. Good Luck

[Pengineer]

Hi, I tried to restore it but it told me there were no restore points available when I was up and running, then when i tried it in safe mode it said the feature was un available.
I can get it to run now but if I have to add anything it brings up the 'updating system settings' dialog and goes no further. When I give it the three finger salute it tells me its not responding so I end task and it returns to near normal ( without the modems and hardware it won't let me install).

[fobotcso]

Oh sorry! I didn't realise restore wasn't available in Safe Mode.

Thinking cap back on but food beckons so, later...

[Pengineer]

Update,
I've removed some ram, its now running on 512Mb with no noticable difference.
As soon as the 'updating hardware information database' appears its game over, the thing just stops, if I cancel the task the rest of the system keeps working aparently happily.
If it happens on boot up the 'updating etc etc' message comes very early, when I kill it then the whole machine locks up.
I've put Norton utils back on and found over 500 problems but none of them fixed this.
Is it a windows problem?
PS the floppy seems to work now as its just let me create a startup disc.
Does anyone know how to upgrade (or downgrade) from ME to WIN 98?

[TR4A]

The reason I was asking about Norton there is a problem with Norton and Win ME.

Errors occur and many 0 KB Oem*.inf files appear on the hard drive after installing a Windows Update on Windows Me

Situation:
When running updates under Windows Millennium Edition (Me) operating systems with Norton AntiVirus or Norton Utilities installed, you see various error messages, one of which could be "Download and Installation Failed." The system stops responding, and you notice that the C:\Windows\Inf folder contains many 0 KB Oem.inf files.
http://service2.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/pfdocs/2001041122464806

[DanJ]

EVO7
I would reccomend not installing it yet, and upgrading to XP. I don't see the benefit to upgrading to 2000 right now, as XP is basically the same, yet more user friendly. I've been running XP exclusively for 2months without a single crash or lockup, which I find truly remarkable considering the tasks I use my PC for. This more then 512mb problem is well documented however. Do a quick search in MS knowledge base for the particulars.

Pengineer

Sorry that didn't do the trick for you. It was simply a thought. How many dimm slots do you have on your motherboard? Are you sure your board is even certified to run 512mb? The reason I ask is I have had mobo's in the past that were limited by chipset infrastructure to 256. I reccomend going back to the configuration you were previously running b4 your upgrade, and see if the problem goes away. That would be a surefire sign that something in your upgrade has affected your system integrity. You could possibly even have gotten a bad ram chip. Happens about 10% of the time.
Another issue, if I'm not mistaken you upgraded to WIN ME? If so, this often causes problems in and of itself due to driver conflicts between the 2 operating systems. OS upgrades should be done from scratch in order to work correctly. I do not believe their is a way to revert back to WIN 98, but as I have stayed away from upgrades to OS's I may be mistaken.
I hope some of this may be of help. It's hard without seeing your machine to diagnose it correctly, and you will probably go thru some of this trial and error stuff untill the problem is isolated.
A wonderful resource to check out would be the how-to sections, and forums at www.tomshardwareguide.com (http://www.tomshardwareguide.com) and www.anandtech.com (http://www.anandtech.com) There are some seriously knowledgable people there, with even more expertise then myself. Let me know how it pans out, and we can try and narrow down the problem furthur.

[Evo7]

Took a quick look at the MS knowledge base and DanJ is quite right - there are problems with systems with a large amount of memory. For example,
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q304/9/43.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=memory&rnk=59&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_S RCH&SPR=W98

says that



Windows Me and Windows 98 are not designed to handle more than 1 GB of RAM. More than 1 GB can lead to potential system instability.



which seems quite clear. However,
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q253/9/12.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=memory&rnk=42&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_S RCH&SPR=W98

goes further and says that



If a computer that is running any of the versions of Windows that are listed above
(Win 95, 98, 98se, ME)
contains more than 512 megabytes (for example, 768 megabytes) of physical memory (RAM), you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

<snipped>

The computer may stop responding (hang) while Windows is starting



Which seems to say that Win9x/ME isn't designed to handle as much as 1Gb either. Other articles suggest a fix that limits the total amount of memory used to 768Mb, so it seems that even MS themselves are unsure of how much memory you can actually use. I didn't manage to find an article anywhere that states what the limits are clearly - anyone else had any luck?

HTH

[shack]

I don't think that ram is the problem, I'm running ME with 640mb without a hitch.
You will have to take ME out completely by a reformat to go back to 98, Mr Gates doesn't like you going backwards and does his darnest to stop you.
I've always found that it is better to use a full OS rather than an upgrade, although I appreciate it is more expensive, some people reckon it is better, if you must use an upgrade, to install through safe mode. ME seems to have a sods law of it own, sometimes an installation will work fine but the next time you use the same disk for another installation all hell breaks lose and it sulks.

[Evo7]

With Win98 you could purchase an upgrade version but install it on a blank hard disk provided that you had a Win95/3.11 CD handy - it just checked that they were original during the install and then carried on. No need to actually install them first. Not sure if this is true for ME/XP, but it was a cheaper way of getting a fresh install.

[fobotcso]

Right, now hold on. It is almost never necessary to do a complete reload when probably all that's wrong is a conflict of Files or IRQs for non-P&P devices. There's nearly always a way but you may have to get your hands dirty (eg in the Registry).

Pengineer, I haven't always been right. I once thought I was wrong when I was right.
:D You can run restore in Safe Mode but of course only if there is a restore point. Can't imagine why it wouldn't run for you.

The next step I would take is to read the bootlog.txt in the Root Directory. This can be long and boring, but you may find an entry such as "LoadFail" against a DLL or SYS file or suchlike.

The following may help. It's from the WinME Help program.

To start your computer without starting Windows

Click Start, and then click Shut down.
Click Restart, click OK, and then press and hold the CTRL key until the Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition Startup Menu appears.
For some computers, you can use F8 instead of CTRL to bring up the Microsoft Windows ME Startup Menu.

Do one of the following:
If you want to load Windows as usual, press the number key that corresponds to Normal, and then press ENTER.
If you want to create a file listing your computer's boot and load activity, press the number key that corresponds to Logged, and then press ENTER. Windows loads as usual and writes the activity to the C:\Bootlog.txt file.
If you want to load Windows using minimum drivers and basic options, press the number key that corresponds to Safe mode, and then press ENTER. Use this option if you have difficulties with hardware and other issues in Windows. In Safe mode, you can diagnose and fix errors.
If you want to step through each activity in the Windows load sequence, allowing or disallowing an activity as you choose, press the number key that corresponds to Step-by-step confirmation, and then press ENTER.
Note

Windows Help is not available while you start your computer, so to print this topic for reference, click Print selected topic, or click Print.

[ 22 October 2001: Message edited by: fobotcso ]