Help!!!

My son decided to "fix" a problem on his computer. He says there are some startup files in the recycle bin. When I reboot his computer I get a message saying Windows is unable to locate krnl386.exe. Then I get the screen that says it is now safe to turn on the computer. I don't have a back up disk for the computer and it wouldn't do any good because his floppy drive isn't working. Can someone please help me fix this problem?

 

no luck

I still get the same message when starting up in safe mode. Any other ideas?

 

Kimi

You will not be able to fix this problem without a floppy. A floppy will allow you to get to the command prompt and replace the files in the recycle bin.

Your best chance to fix this is if you can set your BIOS to boot from your Windows CD and do an Overlay install. This would reinstall windows and correct the problems and keep all your software.

You need to get a floppy 15-20 bucks.

Are you sure the floppy is bad or only disabled in the BIOS?

Mike

 

floppy

The floppy went bad and he removed it. I failed to mention that it is also a Compaq computer and they do not come with a Windows disk. They have a restore cd disk I tried rebooting with that in the drive and it completely ignores it.

 

hmmm

I did find a link to get boot disks online and I got the windows 98 boot disk from my other computer and then burned it on a cd. Is there a way I can have the computer read that? If so, how?

 

Can you boot to a dos prompt? If so, at the prompt type:

cd windows\options\cabs

After typing the line hit the enter key. If you don't get an error message type "setup" (without the quotes) followed by the enter key. If you're lucky and the cabfiles are there windows setup will start and you'll be able to reinstall windows from there. This would probably be the easiest thing to do if it works.

There's one other possibility. If the cab files are there or if you have a windows cd you could extract the file from the cab files and put it in the windows system folder. In order to come up with a command to extract it we'd need to know what the drive letter is where the windows cabfiles are and also what version of win98 you have. If you can tell us this I or somebody else here can probably come up with something. Just thought of something. If they are on a win98 cd you'll probably still have to boot from the cd if possible in order to have access to the cdrom drive. Most likely there won't be any drivers loaded for the cdrom unless the puter's set up different than most.

 

You can probably forget about extracting it from the cd if all you have is a restore cd. If I'd known it was a compaq I think I would've just stayed a lurker on this one. Still, try the command line in my previous post and see what happens.

 

no windows cd

I can boot to dos. I don't have a windows cd because it's a compaq computer and they do not provide one. They provide a restore disk that reformats. If there is any way around reformatting I'd like to ...but will if I have to.

 

When I type cd windows/options/cabs I get
too many perimiters - /options

 

You used the wrong slash mark. You typed:
cd windows/options/cabs

Should be:
cd windows\options\cabs

 

The Dos Prompt that Zander refers to is the one arrived at by tapping the F8 key or holding the Control key while booting and selecting " Command Prompt only" from the menu.

If you do get to this and do succed to run setup as Zander suggested, WATCH CAREFULLY as the various screens come up and make sure that Windows re-installs into the existing folder.

If you do not do this there is a * possibility * that the install will create a new Windows.000 folder. This is not what you want.

These suggestions apply to ALL computers when re-installing from that hard drive. Not just Compaq.

BillyBob

 

When I type cd windows\options\cabs I get this message:
bad command or file name

 

See how much he deleted.

from dos prompt

type

cd\

then

dir

This should show the directories (folders)


Is there a windows.


Mike

 

ok..when I was wrong earlier...when I typed
cd windows\options\cabs
I got a c prompt but when I then typed
setup
I got invalid command...
then not paying attention tried the next suggestion and I typed
dir
got a whole list...but realized that I typed that while it still said
cd windows\options\cabs:dir
so I rebooted and typed
cd dir
and got invalid directory
is it hopeless?

 

This is for Mike or anybody else that knows. I looked in my cabfiles (win98 1st edition) and found the file but it's one of those that there's two of. There's one in the mini.cab file and one in in win98 _41.cab. I know that some of those in the mini cab are used by windows during the install (perhaps they all are; have to admit I don't know). Is that what's going on here? Is this by any chance one of those files that windows builds during the install?

It would appear that the files are on the hard drive so if we know what version of win98 it is the file could be extracted depending on the answer to my last question above. I'm guessing this is one of those systems with the cabfiles there but no setup file.

 

I believe it's se

 

Well, I'll have to wait for someone to come up with the location of the file. Don't have SE and so far haven't been able to come up with a list on the net. I'll keep looking. I know they're out there somewhere. Thought about using a switch to search the cabfiles for the file but on second thought that might not work. I think it would find the one in the mini.cab first and I believe the one you want is the other one. If this file isn't one of those thats built while installing windows this should fix it if he didn't delete a bunch of other necessary files. The way it is now you really don't have anything to lose by trying it.

 

Not the first time he's messed his puter up and I've come to the rescue....by the time he leaves the house I should be quite a pro. I appreciate all the help you've given so far.

 

Kimmi

Your last command

cd dir

no worky
should have been
cd\

then

dir

But appearently they are there.

Zander both cabs are same file. Good chance when we get this one it will be missing another.

Anyways!!!!!

Try this step by step

command prompt

Hit enter at end of ea line. Where I left a # you leave 1 space, I did several so you could tell where a space is suppose to be.

cd\

c:\windows\command\attrib recycl*.* # -h -s -r

copy c:\recycled\krnl*.* # c:\windows\system

If it says 1 file copied reboot and try to come up in safe mode.

Get back!

Mike