TSGL: Reformat Restore Can't Do It

[David R. Feese]

To Don P. and Dave R.

Don, I will reply to your answers and suggestions first.

You say the life of a CD is typically 5-8 years.  I can "read" the IBM
Restore Disk so wouldn't that indicate that it's OK?  It's 7 years old.
Does that life span also apply to CD-R's?  I have archived much data on
CD-R's.  It would be very disappointing to find out they are no longer any
good.

When I did the Reformat/Restore from the OEM disk back in early June before
it quit working, I did remove all external devices and re-install them one
at a time, but that didn't help my problem.

You say to do a manual reformat from a Boot floppy.  Unfortunately I don't
have one.  Can I make one from my other IBM PC?  It does not have the same
features and came with Win98 but I upgraded it to Win98SE.  Is reformat an
option from a Boot disk?  If not, then I wouldn't know how to do it.
Reformat from the OEM IBM disk is automatic.  And that worked OK in early
June then one day I couldn't get the System to go into it for some reason.

The only Win98SE disk I have is an "Upgrade" version but you say full
versions are available on Ebay.

I could turn Scandisk off as you suggest.

Dave R. I will try to answer your questions and suggestions:

The boot order is correct.  The _DVD_ drive is read first and that is where
I inserted the OEM Reformat/Recovery/Diagnostics disk.  It is a _CD_ and it
did work 3 or 4 times but each time the system had the same problem as
before this plus new problems.

The reason why I did the Reformat/Restore in the first place was a result of
a suggestion by a list member as I was having a FONTS file problem back in
May.  Could not read them or delete any of them and there were far too many
on the system.  I probably made a mistake at that time as I renamed the
Fonts folder in Windows System and copied & pasted the Fonts folder from my
other IBM PC.  That didn't work and that is when I had to do the
Reformat/Restore.  That didn't work and I still think it's because the PC is
not in it's original configuration as it was when it was new - that is the
Modem is different, the Memory Sticks are different, it has a different
Graphics Adapter Card, has the Netgear Networking Card, etc. - all of which
I removed & re-installed one by one after doing the Reformat/Restore.

The PC has 512MB of RAM.  (I removed one stick of RAM in early June at the
suggestion of a list member (you, Don?) taking it down to 512MB from 768MB.)

Problem began about the middle of May when I found there were too many fonts
loaded, but as stated above, I couldn't read or delete any of them.  (I
could read them at that time from my other PC via my LAN, but the LAN
doesn't work now.)

All Windows Updates were installed prior to re-installing the old software.

I have always kept my Antivirus program up-to-date, but have never ran it on
any _retail CD Software disk_...  Wouldn't think that would be necessary.

I can get into Safe Mode but it takes several attempts to get there.  I did
run the diagnostics program there (no errors found) before running the full
one off the IBM Recovery/Restore Disk, again the HD passed all tests.

Ctrl-Alt-Del does not show any programs running that I am not familiar with.

I have now rolled the system back to an early May backup and not as many
error messages as before are coming up but there are some new ones.

The reason I suspected the bad _DVD_ drive into which I load the IBM
Restore/Reformat _CD_ disk is because of the following error messages I get:

"Drive HITACHI DVD-ROM GD-2500-8BHAR is reporting Partition percentage has
exceeded 90%."

I also get the following error messages which may not be related to the DVD
drive:

"SMARTHEAP LIBRARY:  X  MEM_BAD_POINTER."

and:

"EASY CLIP:  Unable to load IDAPI32.DLL."

There are other error messages that appear to be hardware ones related to my
IOMEGA ZIP Drive, the NETGEAR FA310TX Fast Ethernet PCI Adapter & 3 or 4
software programs.

I really appreciate the replies from you, Don P. and you Dave R.

This is really too complicated for a novice such as myself.  I apologize
that this reply is so long, too long, I'm afraid.

Thank you,
Dave Feese





----- Original Message -----
From: Dave <heydave at pacbell.net>
To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List <list at tsgserver.com>
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: TSGL: Reformat Restore Can't Do It


> David, some of your description is unclear:
>    May we presume that your "OEM RRD is a CD or DVD? Which drive are you
> suspecting as defective?
>
> Have you gone into the BIOS setup to ensure that the _boot order_ is
> correct for your purposes, i.e., that the system should look for the OS
> first at the CD or DVD drive first vs. the "C" drive?
> With IBMs the BIOS is accessed by repeatedly pressing the F1 or F2 key
> as soon as the first display appears after pushing the power button. If
> you see the Windows Logo, you are too late and will have to start over
> (repower).  If you have a USB keyboard you will need to attach a
> standard PS2 keyboard to access the BIOS.
>
> . Look for a setting that says Boot,  Boot Order, Boot Sequence, First
> Boot Device, Boot Management, or the like, and select it.  to view a
> list of devices from which your system can boot, and ensure that the
> device (CDR or DVD drive) of the Restore Disk is first on the list [the
> method for changing the order is usually shown at the bottom of the
screen].
>
>   What happened to your system that makes you want to reformat?
> Did you install something new (update, drivers, program, hardware) that
> messed it up?
> When did this problem start?
> Have you tried using System Restore to _roll back the system_ to a time
> _before_ the problems occurred?
>  (you said "when I began re-installing my software programs I
> encountered all sorts of errors and problems" --- Did you
> roll back then to try to eradicate the errors, and what were the
> programs that started manifesting problems?
> Did you remember to install ALL Windows updates  BEFORE reinstalling all
> those programs?
> Have you consistently had antivirus and firewalls ALWAYS in place and
> updated? Has all the media (CDs, floppies, ZIPs)
>  been scanned for viruses before using them for installations?
> Can you boot into Safe Mode and have you tried your diagnositics from
there?
> Have you tried using Windows Task Manager  (CTRL-ALT-DEL) to check that
> there aren't any hidden programs running when you cannot shut down in
> the normal fashion?
>
> In my experience, IBM Deskstar HDs have been very reliable.
> Reformat/restore is a pretty severe step that should only rarely be
> necessary if normal computer care (defrag, scandisk, registry cleanups,
> etc.) has been done.  If you are constantly installing new programs
> (30-day trials, e.g.) then uninstalling programs and/or hardware,
> unfortunately the inate deficient character of the Windows98  Registry
> will eventually justify that.
>
> Regardless, the fact that support for Windows 98 has ceased and there
> will be no more updates means that you should look into either moving to
> a new system or, at the least, picking up a copy of XP Home Upgrade
> Edition.  If you don't have the bare minimum of 258MB RAM (preferably
> 512 or more), don't bother.  XP Home is commonly discounted in the Big
> Box stores now --- I've seen it for as little as $49,  and often at
> $79.  Once you've upgraded to XP, you'll wonder why you tortured
> yourself with 98!
> Upgrading would be a wiser expenditure than throwing money at a Windows
> 98 system in a repair shop. (jmho)
>
> good luck
> dave r
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > I am unable to Reformat Restore.
> >
> > System by-passes the OEM Reformat Restore Diagnostics disk and goes
directly into loading Windows.  First error that comes up is Invalid Setting
In MS DOS SYS File: Double Buffer.  System continues to load Windows and
eventually another 9 errors pop up.  I close out of each error message but a
few minutes later they all re-appear.  I cannot get my LAN back and cannot
get the Modem to work again.
> >
> > System will not shut down and I have to do a manual shutdown.  Powering
back up brings up the automatic windows scan disk because the system was not
properly shut down.  Then it goes thru the loading windows and error process
as stated above.
> >
> > OS is Windows 98SE.  IBM PC 2174-590, 550 Mhz AMD K6 Processor with 3-D
Now.
> >
> > Is it possible the drive is defective into which the OEM Restore
Reformat Disk is loaded?
> >
> > Or ... what possibly could the problem be?  I am about to take the PC to
a repair shop to see if it can be fixed.  Maybe I will have to give up on it
and replace it, but I really don't want to do that if I don't have to.
> >
> > A couple months ago when I first had to do the Reformat Restore, I was
able to do it, but then when I began re-installing my software programs I
encountered all sorts of errors and problems.  At that time I was able to
run a complete diagnostics of the Hard Drive and it passed all the tests
without any problem.  The H.D. is an IBM Deskstar.
> >
> > Thank you for your help.
> >
> > Dave Feese
> > _______________________________________________
> > Tech Support Guy Mailing List
> > http://www.tsgserver.com/list/
> >
> >
>
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