Win98SE installed programs gone

I recently had to reinstall Win98SE on a Gateway computer. After the OS install I loaded all of my programs (i.e. MS Office, ISP software, Camera software, anti-virus etc.) On Monday all was fine, on Tuesday nothing was there, not even the monitor which win loaded on boot. I had to reinstall everything but the funny thing is that all my saved files from the programs were still there. Any ideas why this happened?

JW

 

Hi John and welcome,

I always blame a virus when I have no idea what could cause something. It wouldn't hurt to do an on-line scan if/when you get it back up running long enough.

Use either or both of these:

PANDA Free on-line Virus Scan http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/

HOUSECALL Free on-line Virus Scan http://housecall.antivirus.com/

I really have no idea other than that. There are plenty of gremlins that attack system files only, so let's start from there.

Good luck.

 

Another reason things "disappear" for no apparent reason is if your hard disk has bad sectors/clusters. Not saying this is your problem, but if this event re-occurs, i would think it very likely, especially if a virus scan of your hard disk and backed up data turns up nothing. To check for this do this:

Just as the POST is finishing and just before the Win 98 splash screen appears when booting, start tapping the F8 key so you get the boot options menu.

Boot to command prompt only

type this at the command prompt

scandisk c: /autofix /surface

This will reveal if you have any bad sectors and move data from them where possible.


If you do have bad sectors, most often it is time to get another hard disk and bad sectors usually spread as they are mostly caused by a fault in the hard disk itself, like worn heads hitting the hard disk platters. Normally the heads never touch the platters, but as they age they can loosen and dip and hit the disk platters. This causes physical damage to the platters, which is what a bad sector is.