Windows 98 / ME: Ways to restore Windows 98

Although a partial or total system crash of Windows 98 is common, it is not Microsoft's policy to provide users with a detailed analysis of the failures that occur. Perhaps the reason for this relationship in the transition status of Win9x and in future versions of Whistle will change the concept of the survivability of the operating system and there will be full diagnostic and recovery utilities. In the meantime, the most popular recipes: error - reinstall the application, the system or call the developer. In the conditions of such a lack of information, it is often impossible to determine the real causes of the collapse of the system and after a while the situation repeats.

To make a more or less exhaustive list of causes of OS crashes is unlikely to succeed. In addition to erroneously deleting or moving system files (and unlike DOS now thousands), the installation of an incompatible software installation, the installation of incompatible software, or gross errors in the programs used may disrupt the system. In these situations, problems appear immediately and the ways to eliminate them are obvious.

Much worse, when there is a "creeping decay" of the system: random application errors, occasional unmotivated failures of normal loading (Normal Mode). Sometimes even blue screens pop up warning about errors in drivers and services with mysterious numbers. Such symptoms indicate the unstable operation of Windows, but the instability factors remain in the shadows. In some cases, the preventive measures listed below may help, in others it is necessary to use service packs to fix known software errors.

Eventually there comes a point when Windows98 refuses to boot in any version, leaving the user only the command line (in WindowsMe - booting from the system floppy). The set of utilities provided with the Windows distribution to eliminate such crises is more than modest: SCANDISK for diagnosing the disk and file system and SCANREG for diagnosing the database of the system information Registry. And if SCANDISK gives at least some explanation of their actions, then SCANREG manages "without comment." But still, in combination with the Registry backup system, these utilities allow you to restore the operating system.

If there are no problems with hardware (hardware) or system boot areas (FAT), the unsuccessful loading is almost always connected with the damage to the Registry or the most important system modules. Registry or Registry is a repository of information necessary for the normal loading and running of Windows. It includes settings for all hardware, programs, and users. The main part of the Registry is stored in the WINDOWS \ system.dat file, and some custom settings in the WINDOWS \ user.dat file. Verification of their correctness usually happens unnoticed by the user.

Once a day, when the system is successfully launched, the Registry files are automatically backed up to a compressed file WINDOWS \ SYSBCKUP \ rbxxx.cab. (Instead of xxx numbers: 001, 002, etc., which do not agree with the save dates, the freshness of the copy is determined by the date and time the file was created.) The number of backups is controlled by the MaxBackupCopies parameter in the WINDOWS \ scanreg.ini settings file and can reach 99 In addition, you can save Registry copies manually using the SCANREG utilities (in DOS mode) and SCANREGW (Windows mode). (Windows Me also has an additional system for restoring / reserving the Registry - System Restore.)

If the system detects serious errors, the SCANREG recovery utility is started. It stores a defective Registry in the WINDOWS \ SYSBCKUP \ rbbad.cab file and applies the most recent archive to restore it.

It should be noted that the concept of Registry was not the best innovation of Microsoft. Gathering in one place critical system data and allowing any program to write in there any garbage, such as the results of Lines or Mariage, looks illogical. Unavoidable overlays and programming errors destroy system information and Windows suddenly refuses to work, recommending reinstallation.

To hurry, however, is not worth it, because not always Windows correctly determines the causes of errors. Unconditional indication to reinstall is the removal of system catalogs or disk formatting. In other cases, before starting Setup, you need to perform additional studies so that the problem is really solved without affecting the user information.

If possible, the system should be resuscitated, even if it is then completely re-installed. 16-bit access to disk drives in MS-DOS mode is much slower than 32-bit Windows access, and the Windos installation, respectively, lasts much longer.

So, if Windows after 2 - 3 attempts can not boot even in Safe Mode, you need to go to the command prompt (Command Prompt), check the scandisk state of the hard drive and run the scanreg / fix command. In the absence of large-scale damage, SCANREG is most likely to correct errors, and the system's performance is restored. In this case, however, the loss of some information and failures in the operation of individual applications and devices is still possible. They will have to be re-installed as such errors are manifested.

Since the SCANREG capabilities are limited, and the cause of the crash may be outside the Registry, in case of failure, there are several options for further action to achieve boot at least in a safe mode.

Windows diagnoses an error in the Registry, it can not eliminate it and enters the scanreg-reboot cycle. - The current version of Registry is corrupted and the version used to restore Windows.

You need to boot into DOS mode and remove the files system.dat and user.dat from the WINDOWS directory. It is better to use some Commander (NC, VC, etc.). Then go to the WINDOWS \ SYSBCKUP directory and delete the rbxxx.cab file (that is, with the latest date and time of creation). Next, run SCANREG to restore the Registry. An alternative method is to manually select the restored copy of the Registry - the scanreg / restore command. If none of the copies help download Windows, then it will have to be reinstalled. (It is desirable to use the system.dat file from the root directory of the boot disk in the most extreme cases, it is created when the system is installed and does not contain information about subsequent changes.Therefore, if you use it, you will have to reinstall all applications.In the case of reinstalling the operating system, most of the information about applications Will be preserved.)

Windows can not boot even in safe mode, diagnosing an error in a VxD, DLL or EXE file. - The critical system file is damaged or missing.

To restore, you will need a Windows distribution. You need to boot into MS DOS mode. In the WINDOWS \ COMMAND directory or on the installation disk, find the extract.exe program (Cabinet Extraction Tool) and extract the copy of the corrupted file from the cab-archives of the installation disks. Example command:
Extract / A / L c: \ windows \ system drive_cd: \ win98 \ win98_21.cab file_name.dll,
Where - the / A switch allows you to view all the archives in a single pass, drive_cd - the letter assigned to the CD-ROM, c: \ windows \ system - the directory in which you want to replace the file; The name of the cab file does not matter, if only such a file was in the distribution.

It may be necessary to repeat the operation for several files. If the replacement of the file did not help, then the problem can be related to the file WINDOWS \ SYSTEM \ ddeml.dll.

Worst case - Windows hangs during the boot process without issuing a diagnostic. Then you need to select the boot option from the boot manager menu with Logging and analyze the BOOTLOG.TXT file in the root directory of the system drive to determine which modules are corrupted and try to restore them from the distributions or delete them. If the hang occurs at random moments, then the problem is iron failures (overheating, glitches, failure, etc.) and reinstallation will not help.

The above measures may not yield results when the system crash occurred as a result of malicious intent or activation of the virus. This is a separate topic and it will be a great success to return any part of the user data.

The probability of emergency situations can be reduced by periodic prevention of the system. At the same time, it improves Windows performance. The necessary actions include: antivirus control, disk and file system status monitoring (SCANDISK or SCANDISKW) and system integrity checks (SFC).

Programs for fighting viruses and Trojans are now more than enough: Kaspersky Anti-Virus, DrWeb Danilov, Norton AtniVirus, etc. There are plenty to choose from. You just need to take care of the regular updating of the anti-virus database. Without this, the antivirus monitor can on the contrary promote the spread of unrecognized destructive codes, creating a false sense of security for users. You must also use Microsoft Office security tools to detect new varieties of macro viruses.

When checking the status of the disk, the system areas of the disk are analyzed and corrected, the lost areas of the disk are incorrectly marked in the FAT as busy, checking the correctness of the place occupied by the files and directories, the test of the physical state of the media surface. If errors are detected that are associated with executable modules (exe, vxd, dll), it is better to restore them from archival copies for reliability. If the problem files are used by the operating system, you will have to switch to DOS mode.

The System File Checker (SFC) utility is located in the WINDOWS \ SYSTEM directory. Its tasks include the definition of modified and corrupted system files and recovery at the user's choice. Such changes occur when new programs are installed, and checking for versioning of the replaced files is not performed. As a result, some applications may become unusable. SFC allows you to restore them without reinstalling. In addition, this program can be used to extract individual files from cab-archives. (In Windows Me, the SFC utility is replaced with the automatic critical file system (SFP), preventing arbitrary modification of the protected modules.)

It is also necessary to periodically analyze the system using a utility such as Norton WinDoctor (NWD). It searches for the missing software components, determines the breakdown of the Registry (registry) structure, and allows you to clear the registry of unnecessary information remaining after removing unnecessary programs.

And the last thing: when servicing disks with valuable information, it's better not to use the automatic error correction mode - non-standard situations in a rapidly changing world Windows drives various programs to a standstill, and it will be extremely difficult to disentangle the consequences. I think using all these methods of Windows recovery you will be much easier to revive your Windows. Good luck.