VISTA98

keyboard is direct PS/2 by (works fine) tried the battery removal , no change, I will try the Jumper reset and report back tomorrow. + I just remembered that when I select some options from Windows boot menu it lists the drivers its loading then it stops at 440agp (or agp440) , could this be a video driver causing the hang , because I have an AGP expansion card in this system. It came pre installed so I haven't tried removing it yet.

did that, it says: Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device I noticed something odd (before when the drives are connected), in the bottom right corner it shows a code 00B12, now when I reconnected after I tried what you advised I no longer see that code appear. It used to appear for a fraction of a second after the BIOS logo screen, now nothing (the BIOS logo still shows "Intel Desktop Boards" with P4 logo as well.

If I go in the Advanced Boot Menu and disable reboot on system failure , I see the Windows boot screen , then it gives me a blue screen saying: A problem has been detected and Winows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME ... BLA BLA Technical Info: *** STOP :0x000000ED (0x86F72718, 0xC000009C, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) I already looked thru ms support pages http://support.microsoft.com/search/defaul...e+xp&mode=r but I don't have the causes they listed, and I can't confirm or negate if it is the forced UDMA by the BIOS or not, I can't even access the BIOS. Like I said previously its a SATA HDD , with SATA cable, so it should not be affected .. I have 2 other DVD drives (writer & player) hooked via 80 strand IDE cables. This is the original factory setup and they used to work, I used to be able to access even the Windows CD recovery , even though it did not work in the past, but at least I was able to boot with that.

I know it should but it does not. It occurred to me now that its the battery , but right now I don't have a replacement for the coin type battery. Even so , I've had things like this happen in the past with other PCs, in which case a computer can still boot and it lets me access the BIOS menu, it just wont retain the changes. But not this one. This mobo is operating in "radio silence" or some thing. No BIOS error messages. I already know what keys to use for various BIOS makers but this is new to me. I tried all the F keys , DEL, ESC, and even shifted Function keys. Nothing gets me to the BIOS. I even went to the Intel website to make sure, and its indeed F2 , but it does not work. (I press it at the BIOS splash screen with "Intel motherboards" logo. Well, I've also discovered that the BIOS is the one showing the "Windows boot & reboot" screens. Because I've disconnected the HDD & removed the Windows CD but this id*** BIOS is still at it pretending to be Windows boot menu. I even plugged another HDD with a good windows install but I could not boot that one either (normal IDE plug though), its the BIOS that keeps lying to me . Any how, the original HDD is SATA, its the same one I've posted about in May 07 here. I couldn't come back to check for replies at the time because i was also having problem with ISP back then. Now when it looked like there is a fix , I can't even boot the PC. Its a P 3 Ghz , win XP pro. By the way thanks to everyone who replied back then

I have this PC with bad windows install which I have given up on over a year ago. But a few days ago by coincidence while searching on google I found a link to a microsoft article that looked like the solution I was looking for. So I go and fire up that PC with the Windows XP CD in the drive, as last time I used it it was setup to boot from CD, only to find out that all the BIOS settings are now lost and the thing keeps booting & restarting from the HDD with bad Win XP install (after selection in boot menu). I am using a PS2 keyboard (no USB connected) So in order to bypass this I need it to boot from the CD but pressing F2 , DEL , F1 etc does nothing regardless It shows the Intel motherboard logo , and the mother board is stamped intel. Any one know what key to press?

Usually when you have the right language & keyboard layout setup , the only reason a key types nothing (or empty space) is because you have the wrong font for whatever you need to type. Try changing the fonts , first try the ones supplied with windows as those tend to be more complete than unknown fonts you have gotten from a 3rd party or some obscure website. As for the backslash you can also find that on the Arabic layout because the writing is in reverse direction to English , left CTRL-SHIFT switches back to left side.

I just finished restoring my Win XP but System Restore seems to have removed some of the my recently downloaded files (some not all), and when it was finished it listed all the backed up folders -- for example "download(2)" was the backup for the download folder... But I am having a hardtime locating the backed up folder , I can't seem to find them using the Search option.. Any one knows where to look I'd really appreciate it? Sorry it was not possible for me to copy and paste from the sys restore utility there were too many folders and they were not markable or selectable in any way.

I think you should be able to get 1024 on that PC not just 800. But you need to figure out what is causing the problem. Find out the make/version of your video chipset and go to the company's website (or IBM support), and look for latest drivers for that specific model. If all fails, I remember someone made a generic video driver (might have been for ATI) allowing 1024/256 colors even in safe mode = for sure in normal mode. But it only supports 60Hz monitors. I think I've seen it posted on this forum , try looking for that.

It could be the CMOS battery (the one that looks like a coin), at least on older computers it does that when it needs to be replaced.

hmm... now my last reply, in which I explain that, is not showing here.. ?

a couple of months ago I installed Nokia Suite (mobile phone manager software by Nokia) on my XP Pro PC, and a week after that I got a boot error that XP Pro cannot find a file I think it was NTFS.SYS (or SYSTEM or VXD) but I think this is the one -- bad memory sorry. Any way. The last app installed was that Nokia Suite which I think is the culprit. I think it did some thing to damage my MBR, but on the first partition only; the other partitions seem to be fine. Partition 0: WIN XP NTFS (about 100 MB) <<--damaged boot Partition 1: WIN 98 FAT32 OK Partition 2: Nothing NTFS OK Partition 3: My files OK Partition 4: ((unallocated space since the built in XP Pro utility didn't allow me to do a 5th nor re-allocate space)) OK The HDD is Maxtor 250 MB SATA how can I restore the main XP partition and make it boot with out reformating -- I am pretty sure the files aren't damaged it is just the boot record/NTFS thing that got corrupted. what is the recommended course of action here? is the Max Blast utility of any use? (already installed on the damaged partition)

Thanks to everyone that responded, I will try all your suggestions. I do have another WIN ME CD but it is a retail boxed version (doesn't boot from CD) while the version on this computer is OEM Acer so I wasn't sure if it could be of any help?. And yeah, jaclaz, you keenly figured out what I'd intended with my user name VISTA98 ... ! I have almost all Windows versions starting with3.1 to XP Pro but not VISTA .. huh!

After windows ME finishes loading the desktop displays fine then suddenly it changes to white background (Windows turning off Active Desktop), the system then hangs, then spontanously reboots by itself... and so on this PC has no internet so it could not have been any thing downloaded. The last time I used it, there were no problems. Acer Aspire 6600 (about 4 years old) PIII 800Mhz 15 GB HDD 1024+64 RAM +Shared Windows ME OEM (Acer version) / No MS DOS installed PC Cillin 2000 Nero (can't remember may be ver 4) Adope Acrobat 6 MS Word 2000 MS Works any idea what causes this, I know I should turn off active desktop, but I can't get into safe mode for some reason

so how did you fix it?. My nephew is having the same problem with his XP Home PC?

I have Win98 FE SP1 Arabic , and I DID realize your SP2.08 is for the English version only, but I thought I should try it any way. Thinking what's the worst that could happen ... a complete re-install or upgrade to my windows "with-out loosing other dirs on my HDD" . Well, BIG MISTAKE!!!. My HDD got trashed and now even the setup from the CD wont work since Scandisk can't fully repair the damage. Your installer started up alright , prompted me to select the components like it should, then it crashed halfway thru the file copy process. (computer crashed too) So I am left with no choice but to reboot , I did and selected safemode just to avoid trouble, but it seems that came too late; even the safemode started showing BSOD and White Error Boxes (100's). Then I rebooted into Normal mode but the Registry Checker takes over and tries to "repair System files", then reboots . I kept doing the "repair system files ' and rebooting for 2 hours thinking it might be a different file each time but that was another mistake .. it messed up my system even further. In any case, what I am trying to ask here, what can I do to restore my HDD / OS to its pre SP2 condition. I've been a user of this OS for 9 years , and I've had many terrible things happen to it, but never this bad. As for the backup, I did think of it before hand, but for some reason none of my 4 backup apps worked. Any advice would be appreciated. If I could get the file list for the replaced files/ reg changes I could start with that.