Damn computers

Have manged to recover my win2000 computer (ran windows repair) from an "Inaccessible Boot Device" BSOD so it now boots up and all settings/ desktop seem fine. Hurrah

However I keep getting a 797 modem error message whenever I try to dial up and any attempt to open up an Office doc results in a message "please run setup from the original location it was installed." but I'd run setup from the Win2000 cd.

Can anyone point me in the right direction pleeeeese.

Cheers
Jeff

 

It might be referring to the orginal setup disk for the modem. You may need to download the appropriate drivers. If all else fails, dial up modems are dirt cheap, so buy another which should come with the drivers etc.

Rod

 

backup > format > reinstall...

best advice i can ever give, cures 90% of all PC problems

 

Have a look at the bios on start up to make sure that it doesn't think that there is an internal modem attached.

 

badchamp, the 'run setup' message is actually referring to word/office and not Windows 2000. So you'd need to reinstall that. As for the modem try uninstalling all the drivers/software for the modem and then doing a fresh install of them. But in all honesty MikeD has probably the best advice i.e backup all precious data and then do a clean install. In my experience if you try to patch up an already wonky windows install you're just creating more possible errors further down the line.

 

Agree with the advice to reformat when you've got a wonky Windows install. Someone at work came to me about their home PC and twice they did the 'install over the top', despite me saying reformat - to make things worse, they were running Windows 98. They finally listened and did a fresh format/install of XP and that did the trick.

 

One of my work buddies was using 98se. Even though he always uses a fully updated Norton AV his computer hid a dormant virus. Nothing was wrong until he tried to upgrade to XP Home edition. When he did this the virus which only effects XP, became live and trashed his computer, he has been unable to boot windows ever since ( he's had expert help too , not from me i might add ). Looks like a re-format and clean install is on the cards, having only one partition on his single HDD has hampered efforts too. I've learnt my lessons from only having one partition in the past , you never know when you might need a spare boot drive, ( Boot floppies, and CD's haven't worked either though ).

 

Sid - agree with the multiple partitions too! Since having my own PC, I learnt the hard way early on about seperating programs and data.

In fact, since another recent crash, I've now got another drive that is used for backing up every evening - for documents, photos etc. A small batch file runs automatically (using task scheduler) to do this. Then, once a week, I run another batch file (manually) to copy the backup drive contents to an external USB 2.0 drive. Paranoid - probably, but after loosing some superb digital images I took up in Snowdonia, it's worth the security.

My theory of seperate partitions was proven right a few months back. The PC my parents have developed a weird hard disc problem, in the sense that the BIOS would detect the hard disc fine and the data partition (D was accessible without any problems. However, the Windows partition (C seemed to be totally trashed. Add to that the drive was making an odd clunking noise, so something was definately up.

It refused to boot from the C: partition on the old disc, nor could I 'Ghost' it across using some agressive command switches (this has worked before). After installing Windows onto the new disc, I was able to copy the old data partition across from the old drive without any problem. I still to this day am stumped about this one, as the drive clearly sounded like it was on its last legs and the fact that I couldn't boot from it, but could access the data partition makes it all the more weirder.

In 7 years or more of working with PC hardware (longer with software), most hard drives tend to die entirely and not partially like that one!

 

Well if the boot sector/FAT table was screwed, it makes sense. Remember, when you Fdisk with many hard disks, it finds the primary HDD etc. according to the IDE cable locations.
IIRC, then C is the 1st part of the primary HDD, D is the 1st part of the next HDD etc..then when you've used up the number of HDDs connected, it's <...Z on the remaining partitions. You then have to choose a partition to be bootable...thats the bit thats screwed/missing on your dodgy drive story

 

Be careful, some of the smarter virie (?) are actualy stored in CMOS. This makes them immune to reboots and powercycles (CMOS is kept live by battery backup on many motherboards) - even if you re-install windoze or have multi OS boots or a shed load of seperate partitions the virus will keep loading itself during every boot.

dont always blame whats on the drive

//lamboy

 

Although I agree that a lot of the time a windows re-install is required to sort out Wintel machines, does it not strike anyone as the equivalent of replacing the engine in order to fix a slipping fan belt?

 

To safeguard this make a note of your BIOS settings and take out the CMOS battery when you re-install. It's generally a CR2032 on the motherboard.

Now that's geeky...

 

Some motherboards have a jumper to reset the BIOS bas to default.

 

who is General failure, and why is he trying to access my hard disk..?

 

You would have thought someone would complain about all those illegal operations he does.

 

"Card hopper empty" is my favourite error message. Oops, I'm showing my age...

-- Ian

 

For our younger members :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_card