re: restore MS ME
Saturday, October 23, 2004 at 5:23 am
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Cam
(4178 messages posted)
EMERGENCY BOOT DISK FREEWARE
G'day Tim, Best thing to do sport is to get yourself a copy of XP Home (?) or Pro,
depending on which you prefer. That is what I did with this Packard-Bell.
For a Start-Up diskette you can download the ME OEM version and see if there are
any files on the drive. Some PBs come with a Restore section hidden on the Hard-Drive
which, if you can get into the system, you can use to make three Master CDs (CDRs)
and then restore the system fully.
Once you have downloaded the ME OEM bootfile put a formatted diskette in the A drive
of the computer which you are using and double-click on the file, and it will make
you an ME bootdiskette. Then go to www.burzurq.com download delindex.bat to the hard-drive
and copy it to ther floppy diskette. Run the computer's anti-virus program on the
diskette to make sure it is clean and then remove the diskette and move the plastic
write-protect tab over so that it stays that way.
On the same computer ask the owner to make you an Anti-Virus Rescue set of six floppy
diskettes, so take a pack of ten diskettes with you.
If you are considering XP (US$69.99 for Home, and US$114.99 for Professional) then
also go to http://ebcd.pcministry.com and download oldbios.exe to the hard-drive
and double-click on it to make a second bootdiskette. Keep it safe if you decide
to go for XP as it makes the installing much easier.
When you get back to your machine, put the first floppy diskette with delindex.bat
on it into the drive and start her up. At the 1st screen choose Minimal Boot and
press Enter.
When you see the prompt appear, type: dir /p , and press Enter, to see if there are
any files on the drive. Press the spacebar to move page by page.
Get back to the prompt and type: A:\>delindex run , and press Enter to clear
a lot of junk out.
Then type: A:\>deltree c:\_restore , and press Enter to clear the System Restore
Folder, which is often a hive of virii and probably messing things up, especially
on a second-hand machine.
Then type: A:\>scandisk /all /surface , and let it run a full surface scan
so that you know if the drive is OK.
If it passes run: A:\>scanreg /fix /opt , and press Enter.
When all is done take the diskette out of the A: drive and press Ctrl + Alt + Del,
and see if she'll boot up to the desktop.
If this comp's drive is crook, take it out and give it to someone who knows what
they are doing to slave it to their machine, and see if they can make the Master
CDs for you.
If you get back to the desktop (don't connect to the Internet whilst doing all this,
btw.) look for Smart Restore on one of the Menus and start the program.
If you get a Window with a list of programs and can see three icons, a diskette icon,
a spyglass icon, and a CD icon, then you are in business.
You'll need, say ten GOOD QUALITY CDRs (I use Plextor in a slim-line case.).
DON'T use CD-RWs for this, as they can just fade away!!!
If the CD icon is there, click on it to start making the Master CDs and burn them
to these CDRs. Then use the spyglass icon to start the Checksum program and make
sure that the data burned to the CDRs is in good shape.
Take another new floppy diskette and put it in the A: drive, click on the diskette
icon to make a Packard-Bell Technical Services and Smart Restore Diskette. This you
need to keep with the (usually) three Master CDs.
Take the floppy with the ME OEM bootdiskette files on it, copy delindex.bat to the
hard-drive, to keep it safe, and format the floppy. Then go to Add-Remove programs
and make the proper ME Start-UP dikette in Add-Remove programs, add delindex.bat
to it and move the write-protect tab across.
Now you should have:
A proper ME Start-Up diskette with Delindex.bat added to it and write protected.
A Packard-Bell Technical Services and Smart Restore Diskette which should also be
write-protected.
(I use bright-green Fuji-film floppy diskettes for this purpose as they stand out
from others you acquire over time.)
An oldbios.exe floppy bootdikette in case you have to buy an XP operating system,
also write-protected.
And ...
The Three Packard-Bell Master CDs made from the hidden sector. (If it hasn't got
all this I'm going to look a bit daft!)(Some do, some don't, depending on the market
they are sold in.)
If you ARE able to make the Master CDs then you might see a second drive (D:) appear
called "Restdone" of about 4·0Gb where the Master CD programming was hidden.
Take my advice and use: A:\> fdisk , to delete this and the C: drive and make new
drive partitions before re-installing the Operating System.
Packard-Bell drives are tattoed and there is always a small hidden sector, which
works in conjunction with the Master CDs in determining the correct drivers for the
system, etc.
Put the Packard-Bell Technical Services & Smart Restore CD into the A drive and re-boot
the computer. Let it load up the Install screen. Take a look at the options, and
remember the option to "Install Windows Millennium Edition and Smart Restore ONLY"
as this is the best way to proceed.
Before you do press Esc and get to a prompt. Type: ts , and press Enter. The Technocal
Services tools should load. DON'T be tempted to have a go with any which you are
not sure of.
You need, fdisk & format.
When you are ready to install let me know and say what the size of your drive is,
what processor you have and how much RAM is fitted. Right-Click on My computer and
open the Properties for these last two bits of info.
I'll then help you with the install if you need me to.
Mac
WINDOWS SUPPORT RAM
- Written in response to:
- restore MS ME (tim: Friday, October 22, 2004 at 5:43 pm)
Responses to this message:
|
|
