Dead Hard Disk?
 

scenario: father has pc running windows 95, father does not do backups (even after having been told a gazillion times, and having been given a cd burner for that purpose :rolleyes: ) His computer will not load windows, it says that the registry cannot be loaded.

I have managed to talk him into starting windows in safe mode, and trying to restore the registry, but this does not work. He can get into dos using a bootable floppy, but not much else.

I got him to run scandisk (actually a few times) and it runs for about 20 mins and then hangs. As he lives in england and I live in switzerland it is costing me a fortune in calls trying to help him, and my memory is very fuzzy about dos etc.

Is it possible to get the computer to load and run a clean version of windows from his installation disk? (I have tried using the bios setup to boot from the cdrom but it doesnt) Or do I need to tell him his HDD is knacked and kiss it goodbye? Any ideas would be most appreciated.

See here.

He may need to create a floppy disk including the boot files for the CD drive, but hopefully Dosstart.bat as described in "Verifying Windows95" in the link above will enable it and it won't be necessary. See here for details of how it works.

Mishandled,

Your best bet would be to remove the Hard Drive from your Dad's computer and put it in your computer. (I pull the ribbon off my optical drive and let it use that ribbon and power.) Then boot up your computer normally. Then remove all the data from your Dad's Hard Drive so you have a copy of it on your computer's Hard Drive.

Then you are free to wipe out the drive and do a fresh install of the OS from the CABs back in your Dad's computer.

Take Care,

Richard

Likely not hard with 95, but easier with 98 and 98SE, as the boot floppy has CDROM support for most drives. If you can use a 98 or 98SE install CD and it's boot floppy, you'll be able to get it re-setup.

I had a friend in that same situation, but looping in between 98 and win 2000, had him boot to a 98SE floppy and format the drive, then run my CD I sent him, which was a full 98SE install.

Good advice as always from these experts but I'd suggest a more progressive approach. This is the moment for Dad to leave 95 behind.

So, if you can, do Richard's backup. Then get your old man onto 98 Second Edition. Microsoft have ceased active support for 98SE but there are many high street PC shops that'll sell you the clean install CD and that will Boot from the CD Drive. Shouldn't cost a lot. Likely the HD is a bit small so don't try anything more modern than 98SE and keep away from Win Millennium Edition!!

Microsoft do still have a good update facility on their Web Site and it's a simple matter to auto-download some useful patches and driver updates.

Once again I doff my hat in thanks to the experts in Pprune for advising me so fast. Thank you for all the pointers. (I'm trying to persuade him to buy a Mac!:D ) Now wheres the phone? I must be one of the few helpdesks that phones up and pays the bill!

Mishandled,

Oh no!!! You cannot take your poor Dad over to The Dark Side! :eek:

Set him up with a shiny new PC, do not make him learn something completely new like Mac! :ooh:

Richard

Oh yes you can! My boss here at the Uni convinced me of the Dark Side, so last month I bought an iMac and went over to the Dark Side. Verily, although I am just an apprentice in the Dark Arts, already I discover powers unknown. Plus I now have style :cool:.

Darth Evening Star:cool:

'Darth' Evening Star,

LOL :D :D :D :D :D :D

Richard