can't get computer up & running..again!!

[Nancie]

Hi..I sure hope someone out there can help me.
My computer was running okay yesterday. My grandaughter wanted to play a new game from a CD so we put it in and installed it. I went in the other room and about 15 minutes later she came out and said it was frozen. I told her to turn the screen off and leave it. She turned the computer off instead.
When I went to turn it back on it came up to the "active desktop" screen where you have to click to restore. I clicked.. nothing happened..about 20 times I restarted to computer and tried this and finally the desktop came back but when I clicked on an icon nothing happened. I did manage to uninstall the CD game. I went into explorer and it showed that the files were still intact on the left hand side of the screen, but on the right side it was empty. I ran Norton and it said there were no errors found.
The thing froze again and I had to reboot. Now all I get when I start is the "PCI device listing" and then it says "Verifying DMI pool data.........". Everything stops. What do I have to do to get running again?
thank you anybody who can help me...
Nancie

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

sounds like you have a harddrive problem...maybe easy enough to fix but then again may not be...try booting with a startup disk and running fdisk and see if the partions show up and are intact...if they are then running fdisk /mbr may bring it back...if it shows no fixed disk present then it may get quite a bit more complicated

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

another thing that you may want to do first is go into the system bios and make sure that your harddrive is being recongized, if not try unplugging the cdrom drive if on the same ide controller then check to see if harddrive is back

 

[smah]

Press F8 at startup. Try 'Last Known Good Configuration'

 

[smah]

Disregard my last post. Me doesn't have that option (not paying attention to what forum)

 

[Nancie]

I did try a startup disk but nothing happened. The CD light came on and it mumbled for a few seconds, but then it stopped. The screen still was on the "verifying DMI Pool Data".
If I hit 'del' key when it starts and go into that stuff it shows both of my hard drives and the CD. I know my programs are still in there but just can't get to them.

I liked that F8 suggestion..too bad it doesn't work.

Anybody else have any ideas??

thanks again for your help.
Nancie

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

"I did try a startup disk but nothing happened"
when you are in the system bios you will need to make sure that your A: drive is set to boot first

 

[Nancie]

I don't have an 'a' drive. I have it set for "CD-c-a"

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

This system does not a have a floppy drive?
What kind of system do you have?

 

[Nancie]

there was an 'a' drive but it messed up about a year ago and I never bought a new one.

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

still going with first assumption...but leaning more to a cdrom drive failure since it will not boot with a cd...try unplugging the cdrom drive and booting with just the harddrive...changing the bios to boot from c: first or c: only may have the same effect..if that doesnt work by just changing the bios..then physically unplug the cdrom drive from the system

 

[Nancie]

okay, I thought I'd press F8 at start-up and see what happened. It took me to the ME start-up menu..

If I select safe mode I get the blue screen and it says:
WINDOWS PROTECTION ERROR. YOU NEED TO RESTART YOUR COMPUTER. SYSTEM HALTED.

If I select step-by-step I get this:
1. Process system registry y/n
2. LOG FILE y/n
3. SMARTDRV disk cache y/n
Loading & initiating IFSHLP.sys driver.......complete
4. Load all windows drivers y/n
5. msmouse.vxd

it doesn't matter if I do yes or no on 1-2-3..it proceeds.
on #4 if I press yes it goes to #5; if I press no I get the WINDOWS PROTECTION ERROR message.
on #5 it freezes completely..can't do anything but turn it off.

Does this help anyone pinpoint the problem?

thanks again to anyone for any help.
Nancie

 

[wolluf]

Nancie,

When your floppy drive messed up, did you physically disconnect it from the machine (motherboard) - or is it just still sitting there as was? If its still connected, disconnect it.

You could also try disconnecting any hardware devices not essential for it to boot (eg, sound card, modem, network card, CD ROM, CD Writer) & see if it boots ok then. If it does, reconnect devices one at a time.

 

[AccurateAge]

This issue is caused by the hardware("Verifying DMI pool data...&quot
Desktop Management Interface (DMI) is a method for managing computers in an organization. The main component, Management Information Format Database (MIFD), is a database that contains all the information about the local computer and its components.
(from Microsoft Knowledge base)

I Recommend you do as it says in the last replay...
If its the HDD itself...there are still ways to recover your data....keep fighting....

 

[Walterk01]

You know,,sometimes we make things way to hard.
Try Norton Windoctor it seems to fix all my miss installs.

Good Luck

 

[Nancie]

My daughter has ME on her computer too and she put the boot disk on a CD for me. When I tried to fix it that way, the computer did the same as before. It recognizes the CD-rom when starting but after the DMI pool notice it says BOOT FROM ATAPI CD-ROM and then "none" appears after it.
Anybody know what's up with that?

 

[mattjurado]

What do you mean put it on a cd? You have to run the sys command to put the files in the proper order, or do a diskcopy command. If she copied the files by using explorer to a cd layout, and then burned them, that won't work.

Do you have the Windows CD, which is bootable?

Matt

 

[Nancie]

I didn't get a back-up copy - when I bought the computer Windows ME was already installed on it.

 

[xkjdhdg]

It sounds like you have tried lots of things.
Here is a link that will walk you down the steps to trouble shoot your problem.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm