Big Trouble Before/After OS reinstall

winslow · 13th March 2006

This is the kind of problem that got out-of-hand so fast I don't know if it's of Norton AV uninstall, Win98se or malware/virus origin, but the fate of a lot of upgrades and critical files (inventory of possessions for insurance purposes, mailing lists) are hanging by a "thread" right now. I hope this is fixable and that some of my safeguards (and BBS) can get me through this.

Problem machine is: Compaq Deskpro, Win98se, Pentium 3, 128M ram, 4-gig C: harddrive with another 4-gig D: slave drive. This is the primary computer of 3 running on a wired home network linked by a Linksys router with Bellsouth DSL.

Briefly, in late Feb. I switched from NAV to a competitor's firewall. Uninstalled NAV, installed new product (eTrust Personal Firewall) and everything seemed A-OK. One night about a week ago I ran my cd burner program to erase a rewritable cd. When that finished I went into System Tools to do Disk Cleanup, then a Disk Defragmenter, but both programs were not found. I went back to desktop and starting clicking on shortcuts and they all came up "error", "not found", "*.exe not installed". Truly worst-case scenario on everything. I tried to boot up in Safe Mode, with cd-rom support and step-by-step confirmation but those failed. Feeling hopeless at this point I reinstalled Win98se from the OEM disk. This worked except I'm running 98se without all the fixes/patches/SP's I've downloaded over time.

Now Windows comes up, my desktop looks the same, I can even go on the internet but everything in my Programs folder is uninstalled (this includes sound card driver, Windows Media Player and raft of other installed software). I can go to the Programs folder and see all the folders and even many of the files/data I've created, but double-clicking on the shortcuts just says they're uninstalled.

I searched the boards and found some articles explaining SCANREG / RESTORE (I think I may have a clean copy of registry although I've rebooted a number of times since problem began). I also have a backup of My Computer on the D: drive from Nov. '05 and if forced to, will restore from that months-old backup, but I would welcome hearing from any authorities if I can get out of this one alive before I dig this hole any deeper. Thanks all.

**Whiskeyman** · 13th March 2006

Sounds like you need to reinstall the drivers for your hardware plus your programs. For the original hardware drivers it seems there should have been driver CD for that Compaq or you will need to go to their support site to download them. After doing a clean install you would need to redownload third party programs/drivers that you previously used. As for Windows Updates download IE6 first then the rest. This will trim down the total update downloads needed.

Download the latest Compaq drivers, files & utilities

winslow · 13th March 2006

Thanks. I'll post back after tonight with the results, but it looks like it can hardly fail to reinstall the program drivers (although there are many and it will be labor-intensive). The only hitch might be some of the single-user software I purchased and had to install with a license key (they might think I'm trying to install same program on multiple machines).
The Compaq was purchased at a business bankruptcy sale and came with nothing but monitor/mouse/keyboard, which was why I had the 2nd harddrive installed and immediately backed up My Computer to minimize risk of losing everything...but I haven't been making regular backups and I'm paying for it now. Appreciate your input.

winslow · 15th March 2006

Downloaded latest drivers from Compaq (many updated since I last visited) repaired IE and reinstalled most of the other programs, everything's pretty stable again now. Thanks Whiskeyman.