How to use a startup floppy

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Have a startup floppy for the WinME (Emergency Boot Disk).
What I need to know is how to use it…in the easiest, understandable language.
I have never used one before, and daughter’s WinME won’t load all of the drivers,etc . This is an upgrade from 98SE.
I can’t find anything in the KBase or Help in my WinME on what one does and when one is supposed to insert the EBD,etc.
This may be ‘old stuff’ to most users, but it is all Greek to me and I wish there was something that I could print out on the procedures, commands or whatever for this.
I have the funny feeling that I may end up doing a clean wipe/clean install of 98SE/clean install of WinME on her computer…but she has so much stuff that isn’t backedup…and if all I need to do is use an EBD to fix this problem, then that’s what I will do.
Can anyone help me with this…either with a website with the details (how-to) and/or a personal list of the how-to?
As always, all help is appreciated.
Thanks.

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Lonnie,
A lot depends on just what you want to DO from the boot floppy. There are many things available and to try to get them all in a few pages of directions, like step 1 to step x would not be too feasible.
If you want to do a clean install, reformat and partition starting with “fdisk” there is a step by step list at http://micro.uoregon.edu/cleaninstall/reinstall_win.html%5B/url%5D. As the first paragraph says, it is fairly complicated for the first time user, but it does take you step by step. You WILL lose any data that once was on the HD with this method.
SO BEFORE you resort to this, just what are you trying to fixrepair? Drivers for what? etc? Maybe you won’t have to go the “big eraser” bit yet!
Cowboy’s list above has some of the other things to do besides clean re-install.

Bob

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Cowbody – thanks for that…but the way it was all written/presented was more confusing than anything else…sorry.

Viking…I just want to get her Windows to start! Like I said, I can get into SafeMode, with several options – cdrom support/no cdrom support/bootdisk.
She can’t find her original Win98SE HP cds…but I have made a 98SE floppy for her to use as ‘proof’ of previous OS.
I just need help with HOW to use this 98SE floppy to get her WinME loaded, etc.
I can’t find any info on how to do this as this is an upgrade from 98SE to WinME…I have an installed OEM WinME and whenever I need to do a ‘dirty’, I just go into C:WINDOWSOPTIONSInstall and do the setup.exe…but that can’t be done on hers as it has something corrupted…so I thought that using the floppy would help, along with the upgrade WinME cd.
Note…she does have a WinME EBD…but I don’t know if that will work if entire OS as it is now, is corrupted,etc.
Oh yes…HD is all 1…

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————————————————————
…so I thought that using the floppy would help, along with the upgrade WinME cd
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Well, What I would try is to boot into safe mode with CDROM support, run the install of WinME from the CD. When It asks for “proof” insert the floppy and point to the A drive. It really depends on what you have on the “proof” floppy as to weather it’s enough to satisfy the proof requirement. I used to save a set of floppies of WIn 3.1 as “proof” but it asked for a number of them and looked for certain files on each to be satisfied that you had some kind of Windows installed at one time or another.

Bob

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If you do not have the original W98 CD’s, I do not think an ERD is going to be enough proof for an upgrade.
If the only option – i.e. the only new OS you can install – is an upgrade to ME, I suspect you are going to have to upgrade the current installation, and not do a fresh install.
If you can start W98 with CD support, can you upgrade over the present installation? You may find you can install into a new Windows folder which is probably as close as you can get to a ‘clean’ install.

How can she have an WinME EBD if she hasn’t installed it? Or do you mean a normal boot disk?

As a matter of interest, why do you think the current installation is ‘corrupted’? Have you run a full Scandisk (from DOS) including surface scan?

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The OS was working just perfectly yesterday, until 5PM, when she couldn’t get into hotmail.com (homepage) to check on her email…hotmail kept stating that the cookies weren’t enabled (which they were…nothing added or changed in anything at all).
Figured maybe IE 6SP1 needed to be repaired…did so…still same hotmail error re cookies. I decided to do a system restore from the 14th…which endedup with the problem we are in now.
She has a startup floppy made from her WinME (Add/Remove) when we installed the OS. We have never had to use that floppy, cuz we don’t know HOW to use it! No instructions are given as to how/when/what,etc for the useage of said floppy.
The W98SE floppy is what I d/l from my computer (via the internet) in case she needed it. Maybe EBD is wrong terminology, sorry.
Something has to be corrupted if I can’t get past the screen with Normal/SafeMode,etc on it. I’ve never had any of these problems at all with my WinME.
I have gone into SafeMode and run the ScanDisk and it repaired whatever errors there were on the HD.
It’s getting to the point where I am getting frustrated because of lack of instructions by M$ re how to use the ‘normal boot disk’!
She doesn’t know how to do this stuff – I do all the maintenance on her computer – and I don’t even know how to use this floppy.
I can’t/won’t do a wipe of her HDD since we can’t find her HP OEM Win98SE cds…and she has too much stuff in her ‘Documents’ that isn’t backed up.
Is there any help with using her WinME cd and floppy,etc? If not, then I will take her computer to some computer shop with what we do have and let them do this stuff…unless it calls for wiping her HDD, which won’t be done at any cost. (will call them first, of course).
BTW, there is nothing on her computer that has W98SE on it…it is all WinME. There were no 98SE files saved when ME was installed.
I need simple, easy to understand instructions…PLEASE.

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I don’t use WinME nor have I ever used its boot disk, but most “Emergency Boot Disks” are just inserted into the A: drive and then you reboot your computer. Once it is booted into the A: drive, a menu may or may not pop up and you can select various “repair” options — like scandisk, etc. Depending on how ‘user-friendly’ MS made the EBD, this could be very easy or very challenging.

Have you looked at this: How to Start the System Restore Tool From a Command Prompt

Then there is this information:

Recovering from a Failed Restore Operation
If your computer becomes non-bootable and System Restore was the last operation performed, you can use the Emergency Boot Disk (EBD) to revert your computer back to the state prior to the Restore operation. When you use the EBD to boot your computer, you will see the following message:

System Restore detects that a restore was the last operation completed. It is recommended you now revert the changes to your system made by System Restore and restart before you proceed. If you choose not to revert these changes, this option will no longer be available.

1)Revert the Restore changes made to my system.
2)Do not revert the Restore changes made to my system.

Enter a choice
If you select the first option, your computer reverts to the state prior to the restore operation and you are prompted to restart the computer:

System Restore reverted the chances made by the last restore operation.

Remove all disks from the floppy disk drives and press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart your computer.

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Lonnie–

Hotmail had system wide problems yesterday at different times of the day–and they are becoming frequent. A lot of people couldn’t get in–and part of it may have been some problems with Passport or their servers or both. Don’t wipe your hard drive. I am trying not to take a shot gun approach and give you some links that might help. I read over and over and forgive me but I can’t tell what is happening precisely when you try to boot up. You didn’t exactly say. What screens are you getting? I have in mind that although there is a problem with your daughter’s OS whavever it is, yours is intact.

Here goes:
Windows ME Installation Step by Step (I realize most or all of this is in conjunction with a V-Com product like System Commander or Partition Commander and the idea would be to do this without buying anything extra)

How To Run System Restore from Windows ME Startup Disk and Win ME Technical Articles
—————————————————————————————————————————-

1) Windows ME Installs, Alternative Installs, Tips and Tricks to Install, ME Setup Switches, Upgrade Installs, OEM Installs, Boot Disks and Other Help

2) Windows Tips: Boot Me Up, Scotty

3) Download Win Rescue for Windows ME

4) Bootdisk Project for Windows 9X

5) 272241 Differences Between the Full Retail Setup Disk and the Boot Disk

6) Windows ME How Tos from Microsoft

7) 277648 How to Install Windows ME in a New Folder

8) 245162 Cannot Access Hard Disk After Booting from Floppy Disk

9) How to Create a Startup Disk in ME

10) 271823 How to Create a Windows ME Startup Disk Manually

11) 272117 Description of Files on a Windows ME Startup Disk

12) 264938 How to Examine and Troubleshoot Detailed Error Messages in ME

13) 268891 How To Troubleshoot Installation Issues During Setup in Windows ME

14) 267594 Starting from the Windows ME EBD Disables the Hibernation File–This for its info on the ME EBD.

15) 263756 Emergency Disk Wizard: Some of the Required System Files Are Missing Please Format the… An Issue with McAfee Only

SMBP

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To all tht helped me with my daughter’s problem…an update.

Nothing worked at all. So, in the end, I went to Staples and purchased a full version of WinME and installed it on daughter’s computer. Everything…well maybe 82% of her software has been installed. I will b installing the rest tomorrow…nothing better to do.

Thanks to all that took the time to list the various help files,etc…I did check each item out, tried some of them, but nothing helped.
The help was appreciated very much.

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