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Re: Reload Op Sys

Steve Knecht wrote:
My computer at my office (Compaq Presario 4160) is displaying the following symptoms more frequently all the time.  The green light on the disk will start up when nothings happening ( I may have several programs open) and it will take up so much time doing whatever it is doing that the cursor or keyboard is essentially locked up.  I can sometimes (50%) of the time do a CTRL-Alt-Delete and sometimes end a task or shutdown, but more often than not, disk just spins and systems gets totally unuseable and lost. Maybe I've bombed some part of the op sys of Windows 95, as this is happening four or five times a day if I'm at my desk.  Suggestions?


When it's happening, press CTRL-ALT-DEL (only once or you risk rebooting your machine).  On a Win98 box at least this brings up a Close Program box that shows what's running.  Whatever is churning your machine should show up there so you can identify it.  That should be the first step.
 

   I was thinking of having McKinney send a Windows98 CD and reloading the Op Sys.  Can I do that without reloading everything else on the system.  There are some things I use (MicroSoft Project) that I don't have a CD for anymore).  Suggestions? Thanks


  A reinstall is actually a fairly standard cleanup solution.  Unfortunately you will normally need to reinstall your apps also.  You cannot save anything on your boot drive (i.e. C:) but other drives and partitions can be saved.  However, most apps make extensive use of the Windows registry which you probably want to throw out if you're having problems which is why you would need to reinstall your apps even if they were on a different drive.  Since this is a painful option, you may wish to concentrate on identifying what is causing the trouble and fixing that either by disabling, uninstalling, or reinstalling a particular application or driver.  You could try doing an upgrade to Win98 but there is no telling whether or not this will help and there is a risk that it could fail altogether.

  Keep in mind that disk drives crash and computers get destroyed (i.e. fire) or stolen so it's always good to be prepared to start anew.  That said, I have yet to work out a good system for keeping track of all those *^#&)@ registration codes even if I have my installation CDs.

  Good luck.

         Guy