Please help with my laptop troubles

Hi all, I'm new to the board.

Well, first off, I have a Sony PCG-F360 laptop computer. It is 400 mhz and 64 MEG of RAM. It is a Pentium II and currently has Windows 98 SE installed.

First off, problems were the computer would shut off randomly while starting up. This was anywhere between 10 seconds to 2 minutes. I had no idea what it was, so I sent it in to a computer tech, and he told me the motherboard fried.

So, I went on eBay and purchased the same motherboard. Fortunately (and not) I found out that the motherboard was NOT fried, because the OS still started up, it would just shut off randomly, so I thought it may have been a hard drive problem. The computer, however, DID run during 'SAFE MODE,' so I formatted my hard drive. The error I received, when I initially started 'SAFE MODE' was "SBS.DRV can not load because VSBS.386 is not available. Check your SYSTEM.INI Windows configuration file." I formatted and reinstalled Windows 98 SE.

It has been nothing but problems ever since. The install came out flawless, BUT, when Windows was trying to start up, it came up with this unusual error: "You started your computer with a version of MS-DOS incompatible with this version of Windows. Insert a Startup diskette matching this version of Windows and then restart."

What is going on???!!! Why is it incompatible?! What should I do to rectify the situation? Someone suggested copying over the jo.sys and command.com from the boot disk from the Windows 98 CD-ROM over my hard drive, and I tried that, and now when I try to start up Windows 98 SE, it just stays in that screen with the clouds forever. I've tried reinstalling also, but it does nothing.

Can anyone guide me? My AIM name is SpeedKing9. I would appreciate any help, as I'm lost!

P.S. I would try to upgrade to XP, BUT, my computer doesn't meet the requirements, so I don't want a computer that's too slow to even run.

Thanks,
Alex

Update: I just tried deleting the c:\ from fdisk of the Windows boot disk, and everything seemed to go fine, reinstalling Windows 98, but now I get this message:

"c:\window\systevmm32.vxd: Missing/unable to load. "

What does this mean? What can I do to finally fix this thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update 2: Ok, now I'm back to the original problem; my computer just shuts off COMPLETELY randomly out of nowhere, even with the format and reinstallation of Windows 98 about five times. What is it a problem with?

 

Hi SpeedKing9
Sorry your post slipped us by. Have you made any headway with your problem? If not, can you give us a short re-cap?

Daizy

 

Perhaps a bad battery. Have you tried running the laptop with the transfomer/charger plugged into the laptop & a 120v AC power source?

just a thought
Bubba169