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Thread ID: 17920	2002-04-14 06:19:00	Win ME - BIG problem!!	Guest (0)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
43764	2002-04-14 06:19:00	My father-in-law has just phoned to tell me his Win ME PC has done a major belly-up. I'm not sure exactly what he's done but to cut a long story short the machine boots up to a blank screen with just 'four coloured little windows in the bottom right corner'. He can't use his mouse and there is no Start button or taskbar. It then produces a message that says he has to restore Scanreg or something, then gives a list of four options: Start as Normal, Start in Safe Mode and two others that I forget. There appears to be no option offered to restore the registry. Without him even doing anything it then says Windows has detected new hardware, shall it do a search for drivers, blah blah blah. I told him to let it but he doesn't know what hardware it is searching for, nor can he understand the resulting message. It remains in that 'safe mode' and won't respond to anything. He has to use Ctrl Alt Del to shut the machine down. Can anyone give any tips on how to get out of this mess? I can't go and have a look myself at the moment, even if I knew what to do. TIA	Guest (0)
43765	2002-04-14 06:46:00	I doubt this will be a lot of help but....I had a WinME system of ours go belly up a couple of months ago, not exactly like your dads....ours would boot into a semi safe mode being Safe Mode on the screen but no access to anything. It was also trying to detect new hardware, stuffed if I know what, but if allowed to tried to point me to I assume the last known piece of hardware installed. If we tried to start in anything other than Safe Mode it simply went to a black screen and with Safe Mode not functional and no way to get out of it except through the power button, tried to recover via both the Boot Disk and Nortons AV Boot Disks, in this case neither of them worked so after several hours of swearing and the threat of divoice hanging over me, I gave up and reformatted and reinstalled. Lost a couple of days of work but nothing that I could not recover from. On looking at the problem afterwards I suspect that one or more files, most likely windows related went belly up taking down the whole system with them. Maybe you are looking at the same.	Guest (0)
43766	2002-04-14 06:55:00	Susan First, does your father-in-law have his Windows WE CD ROM. second, does he have a Windows ME start up disk or a Windows 98 start up disk. In safe mode - try Start>programs>accessories>system tools There is an option there for system restore which will take the Windows Operating system back to the last identifiable 'good' system date. This does not always work well. From the same place system tools> go to system information. There is a range of system repair and check utilities here also. All should be available in safe mode. If none of that works - try a boot up from a start up disk and take the option start with CD support. You may need to re-install Windows over the top of the existing installation. This will leave your programs in place but repair Windows. There is a risk in all the available options that it is a problem not related to the operating system but to hardware - like RAM the Motherboard or the hard disk. If it is any hardware related issue the operating system won't be able to fix it, but you might be able to find it from DOS using the start up disk.	Guest (0)
43767	2002-04-14 08:38:00	Thank you for your replies. Gordon, that sounds exactly like the father-in-law has got, a safe mode inside a safe mode. Doesn't sound too good, does it? Anyway, he phoned again to say that he's been in touch with the shop and is taking it in tomorrow morning. My services are no longer required (phew). Good luck to the shop and thank goodness for extended warranties!	Guest (0)
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