Fatal Exception when booting Win98 in Safe Mode

[sdidomenico]

Hello,

The computer in question is a Compaq Deskpro EN Series 300MHz. It's my mother-in-laws, so I have to fix it.

The computer will start Scandisk when Win98 is started in Normal Mode. Then the Scandisk will fail suggesting to use Windows Scandisk. I can't use Windows Scandisk because I'm getting a Fatal Exception when booting Win98 in Safe Mode.

I booted to Dos and ran Scandisk. It reports lots of "Invalid directory entries were removed." Then it reports an error with a directory named c:\windows\tamp and the Scandisk hangs.

Now the computer will just keep rebooting itself in Normal Mode, the Scandisk does not even start up.

I suspect it has a virus but I do not have any Dos based tools to fix this.

Can anyone suggest a solution?

Thanks in advance for your time,

Steve DiDomenico
Nashua, NH

 

[micker377]

Can this system boot from CD? If so, buy (or borrow) a copy of Norton anti-virus or Norton SystemWorks. I can't find a program small enough to fit on a floppy.

 

[sdidomenico]

Thank you

 

[wolluf]

You can download a dos based virus scanner (set of rescue disks) - Trend certainly have one available (it produced a 7 disk set of floppies last time I downloaded it), and I'd expect other AV providers do too (AVG free one for example).

Of course you could always mount the drive as slave in another machine & scan it from there (you'll probably need to reformat/reinstall at some point & will probably want to rescue some data from it - so slaving it is a reasonable approach for this too).

 

[joslincomputer]

I really think you have a bad hard drive. When Scandisk does that kind of repetitive stuff that's almost always a dying hard drive. Replace the HD and reload 98. Then attach the bad drive as a slave and you should be able to salvage most of the key data to the new drive.

Or, if you have the Norton Ghost DOS disk, if the exisiting drive isn't too far gone, with some luck, you MAY be able to clone it to a new drive and have things working again on the new drive. Otherwise just reload 98.

-Joslin Computer Solutions

 

[sdidomenico]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all of the great information.

Here is what it did:

1. removed the drive.
2. installed the drive as a slave in another Win98 computer
3. ran the Windows Scandisk with the "Thorough" and "Fix" options.

Results:

1. the OS is trashed
2. after all folders and files were fixed, very few files were recoverable.

Repair:

1. I took what data I could, AOL organize folder and some pics and docs.
2. fdisk the drive and and reload Win98 SE.
3. Installed all Win98 Updates.
4. Loaded AVG Anti-virus (free version) and set it up to run a full check daily
5. Set up Windows Scandisk and Defrag to run on a schedule
6. Loaded all of the correct drivers from driverguide.com
7. after loading all of the software needed, ran Scandisk and Defrag

Result:

1. this computer is running great with really good color
2. 12+ hours of work (could not get the modem drivers to load - had to resort to installing my spare modem)
3. my Mother-In-Law will now love me again
4 my wife is now mad at me because I put in so much week-end time on this

 

[wolluf]

glad to hear you're sorted - you'll have to take your wife out for a romantic meal for two!