Can't delete wrong display adapter

I'm refurbishing a 400 Mhz Celeron computer. I installed Win 98 SE, and then by mistake I attempted to install the wrong video driver. I have since found out that the proper driver would be the Trident TGUI 9680.

Then the computer got stuck when it booted in normal mode, and then it would restart itself in safe mode. This happened repeatedly. I went into the device manager and deleted the video driver. I expected it to automatically restore VGA when I rebooted. Instead, I have now rebooted many times, and there is no display adapter listed in the device manager. But when I go into display properties, and choose advanced and then adapter, I am told that the incorrect display adapter driver is still there. But I am in safe mode, and I can't uninstall the adapter on the display properties screen.

I am an experienced user and am comfortable making changes in the registry or editing DOS .ini files, but I need instructions on where to go and what to change.

I believe I can solve the problem by wiping the hard drive and re-installing Wndows, but I was hoping I could find a faster solution.

Thanks.

Harriet Bograd

 

I already DID delete the adapter from the device manager - and it isn't there any more. But perhaps because the computer keeps crashing on startup and then reboots into safe mode, it hasn't given me the opportunity to re-install the VGA driver. And the wrong driver is still listed in the adapter area of display properties.

Now that I write this, I'm wondering if there is any other problem causing it to crash, or whether the wrong driver is causing the crash. I did try to create a "bootlog.txt" file, but now I don't remember where to find the file, if that might help.

Shall I just wipe the hard drive and start over? Or is there an easy solution?

Since I'll be giving the computer to a novice user, I'm thinking that maybe it would be safer to start over.

Harriet

 

Hi Harriet,

When in Safe Mode (check there is nothing related to video in Add/remove programs), go to Display > Settings >Advanced (button) > Adapter (tab) and change the adapter to a "standard" adapter (or you may need a "standard PCI" adapter or "standard AGP" adapter ). That should allow you to boot through to normal Windows. Try installing the new drivers then.

Post back with your findings, there may be other ways to install them.

Matt

 

I'm pretty sure that the display properties adapter area wouldn't allow me to change the driver - the "change button was greyed out in safe mode.

In any case, I've just started reinstalling windows right over the previous version on the computer.

Harriet