Windows 98
 

I have a problem, I kept an old computer running windows 98 but with lots of old photos and documents on it. The time came when I wanted to print something off of it so I dragged it out and then I had changed my printer so I changed the printer, Windows then asked for the serial number of the Win 98 disk and after searching high and low, I seem to have thrown out Win 98 years ago. As it is an old Pentium II with next to no memory, I cannot even feed it Win XP. Now, it refuses to start up, demanding the Win 98 serial number every time it is switched on. :ugh:

Does anybody know how I can circumvent this or, does anybody have a Win 98 serial number that they would kindly share with me?

JJJ3X-CDCXP-MBVMM-VPP9B-J8DJJ........but what'll that do?

For small donation to the Royal British Legion I might be able to pop you something in the post.....

Be careful if you reinstall '98 however, as in the process it may remove all on the drive.
I think the best bet here is to remove the drive, set it as a slave and dangle it on your 'proper' pc. Remove the data you want, THEN play with it.

Yes, agree. Careful here podner. Get someone who knows what they're doing (NOT the PFY in your local Dixons) to copy your precious data off to CD/DVD/another HDD before you start tinkering.

MS installs are not very forgiving.

PS: When your data is safe, consider installing Mepis - http://www.mepis.org/ or Kubuntu - http://www.kubuntu.org/ rather than reinstalling ol' 98. They're modern and fast (even on middle aged [but not geriatric] machines and include all the applications you'll ever need. Even better, they're free.. You can then reimport all your data or access it on a separate disk.

If you really MUST reinstall 98 the Euberant's UNOFFICIAL Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 2.1a (Freeware) - http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html - is a must.

:ok:

Using another PC, download one of the many live Linux CD images eg Knoppix, Kanotix et al. Burn the .iso to a CD and use the CD to boot the Win98 machine.

You'll have a working PC that you could use to copy or email your data. Forgets M$ bullsh!t for a joke.

I ran a Toshiba 480 CDT PII 233 with 160MB RAM for a long time with Win2K - still have it as a matter of fact! It still comes in useful occasionally!

If you can get hold of a Win2K installation disk (preferably slipstreamed to SP3 or 4), it would be a reasonable alternative.

SD

Try this it may help.
Shut down your PC and restart in DOS mode (click Start, click Shut Down, select the Restart In MS-DOS Mode radio button, and click OK). At the DOS command line, type scanreg/restore and choose a backup copy to restore. Do not attempt to do this by launching a DOS window from within Windows; Windows uses the Registry files when it is running, and you won't be able to replace them while they are in use.

If that fails this may work
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/220878/en-us

Allen

The Knoppix "bootable CD" is by far the best option. I've recovered key data from several scrambled Windows installations that way.

All you need then is a "plugin" drive (eg a USB one) and you can copy off your stuff.

Failing that, the next best is to slave the "HD with the data" on a different PC.

DON'T attempt to reinstall anything - that's a good recipe to lose the lot.