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Windows 98 died, need to recover my data

My home computer runs win98, and it's crashed and burned once again, about the 3rd time in 6 months.

When i boot up, i get an invalid page fault in mshtml.dll or something like that.

so, explorer crashes, and my only option is to hit OK, and then without explorer, i can't do anything!

I can reformat my computer, but i have some files on it i don't want to lose, and i am wondering how to get them off. I have tried booting in safe mode, that doesn't work. I've also tried just trying to use the computer without clicking ok, i was able to open notepad, but as soon as i clicked on a folder or anything, it was toast.

So, i'm thinking i will need to remove the HDD and get the data off somehow. I brought it into my office, and all the computers here have windows XP on them. I think that presents a problem, you can't just pop a HDD in like that on XP can you? In any case, i tried it, and it simply didn't work. The jumper on my HDD is set at CS. I've done this in the past with win98 machines, and it's worked, but it isn't now.

does anyone have any suggestions for how i could get my data back?

If your data is that important and you don't want to risk losing it, I suggest bringing in your PC to some data recovery people... a couple hundred bucks later, your data will be safe

well, thanks for the suggestion, but, my data is not worth that much.

BEsides, i should be able to do this myself, i have extensive computer knowledge, every version of windows available to me, and a network full of computers at my disposal, there is no reason i should have to pay hundreds of dollars to get some text files off my computer.

but of course, microsoft makes it all so difficult!

Re: Windows 98 died, need to recover my data

quote:

Originally posted by JohnSmith So, i'm thinking i will need to remove the HDD and get the data off somehow. I brought it into my office, and all the computers here have windows XP on them. I think that presents a problem, you can't just pop a HDD in like that on XP can you? In any case, i tried it, and it simply didn't work. The jumper on my HDD is set at CS. I've done this in the past with win98 machines, and it's worked, but it isn't now.

When you booted the computer at work could you see the hdd in dos?

Don't know if it's possible but, maybe they have some sort of protection on the computers where you work so you can't install new hardware.

I do know that you can install your harddisk on a computer running XP and recover your data, XP is not wierd in that way.
So
1. Your harddisk is busted.
2. Your company's computeres are protected agains new hardware.
3. You did something wrong.

But i'm pretty sure you can install win98 without loosing your data... but i don't remember how.

quote:

1. Your harddisk is busted.

Nope, can't be, because i can boot at home, it's reading the drive, it just doesn't get past the startup sequence, because some file won't load right. I have made no changes to the system recently whatsoever, it's just a flaky computer in general.

quote:

2. Your company's computeres are protected agains new hardware.

Possibly, but i don't think so. I logged on as administrator.

quote:

3. You did something wrong.

Very possible. I'm not to experience at this. I set the jumper on the HDD to CS (Cable Select) and thought that should work. there are two IDE channels in the computer, with 2 inputs on each cable, the end of one goes to the existing HDD, and then end of the other to the CDrom. I tried installing the disk on the one with the HDD, and the computer would not boot, because i guess it was trying to boot of my drive. then i tried on the one with the CD rom and i couldn't see my extra drive.

I think that possibly it has to go on the one with the other HDD, but, i'm not sure. I couldn't get to the jumpers on the HDD, so i'm not sure what it's set at.

I'm going to try switching the order of the drives and mucking about a bit with the jumpers, thanks for the help.

hmmmm, I had a similar problem like that once. Just using my computer and for no reason whatsoever it just crashed and couldn't boot up. I was pissed as hell and my only option was to format everything Luckily at the time I had partitioned my drive into 5 separate partitions so when I reinstalled the OS (XP) only my C: drive was formatted and all my other data was still there from my other partitions.

fetch the files thru DOS
i had that kinda problem a few years ago...
had to learn bloody dos commands etc...
the mp3s/files r still on the hard-drive, u just cant get to them...

The problem isn't XP. I run it and have no problems popping drives in and out, it will detect them automatically.
Try this:

Leave the working HDD on the end plug(master) of the IDE cable, and put the nonworking HDD on the middle plug(slave) of the same IDE cable. Don't use the cable select setting for the nonworking drive. Instead set the drive to act as a slave, on every HDD I've come across the drive is set to slave by having no jumpers plugged into the drive. Boot up the computer and it should automatically detect the drive and boot off of the working drive. You should then be able to see both drives on the computer. If not, you may have to manually set the BIOS which I won't bother explaining as it's probably not necessary. Then I'd recommend that you go out and buy yourself a new drive immediately and find a way to get your files onto it.

Hope this works for you. Peace.

ok this happen to me few times ...and i understand the feeling of thinking you have lost everything ...



try these steps if this doesnt work then you should go to the recovery people...


1.Virus scan....through DOS make sure there are not virus if that doesnt do anything go to step 2
2. Try to do a scan disk and defrag of hardrives which sometimes a really fragmented drive will cause it to crash
3. Check registry links ...when ever you have a lot of broken registry links etc ..it can cause a crash...programs like Norton/Fixit are some of the programs that check for interior things such as that.
4. if u cant do any of those or those dont work ....try reloading windows 98 ..but i prefer you to upgrade to a higher version right away ..sometimes missing a needed .dll file or something from windows will cause it to crash ......this usually will fix anyproblem ..and you can load windows through dos ...make cdrom support boot and just reload windows from scratch..non of your stuff will be deleated just will reload all the needed files to run windows usually take a 1 - 2 hours depending on how fast your machine is


what i dont think it is ....i dont think you have a back HD that wouldnt even get you through a boot to DOS....

so try that and if you have any kind of problems contact me again ..but really try to reload windows that usually fixes almost any problem unless you have a virus



if that works and your computer is running again ....make sure to defrag your machine about 1 - 3 times a month depending on how much info is getting put on your drives each month..... try getting programs like norton or fixit ..and run a weekly test on registry,disc scan, registry defrag...etc.. make sure do a monthly virus scan .....try to have 512ram as well ...if your under that try to get that much at least... if you only have one drive i suggest you to get 2 drives ...put all your important info on one drive and windows on the other ...most crashes are windows related ..... if you do those things your machine will less likely to crash

No big deal. Your drive is fat32 which is fine to be accessed by XP machine. Just set the drive to slave and plug it in. Make sure XP boots and not your machine and once it does to explorer and go through your files and clean it all up and delete any junk.

There's two ways to do this

1. Copy all your stuff onto another hard drive and format it and then reinstall and copy it all back over or...

2. Delete windows directory totally and then take the hard drive and put it back in your machine. Make sure the jumper pin is back to CS, then boot using the win98 CD (assuming your CD drive can handle this)

You may have to change the CD drive to the first boot order in your bios. Setup windows as usual and voila. Another option is to setup a partition for windows of about a gig and have ALL your programs and music on the second partition. Reason is that you can then make a image of your windows partition once it's installed properly using Norton ghost and so if it fucks up again it can be restored in 2 mins back to it's original state

i got an illegal page fault once

just started the comp in safe mode, and removed all the devies with irq ports from hardware profiles, rebooted and everything was fine

thanks guys..

still haven't got it yet, but thanks for all the suggestions, i will try them out.. again.

here's a quote from another board i posted on:

quote:

Originally posted by chudboy6 Change the jumper to SLAVE...add it to another machine, boot like normal...you should be able to see the drive "broke" under "my computer" copy the files you need either to the good drive or burn them, then either format or reinstall 98 over the top to see if it fixes it. :bandit:

Yeah, that was my plan, but it didn't work. I tried setting it to slave, that didn't help. I also tried switching the order of the drives on the cable, that did not help either. I tried a bunch of different combinations, and no matter what i do, the drive just doesn't show up.

I think it's because the computer i am trying to use is windowsXP, and the computer i need the data from is windows 98.

www.runtime.org


----> Get Data Back

worked for me when i used 98/me

i dont know how to make it work for my win2k though

just managed to delete a folder with some mp3's i want back.. bLAh
i need to find out how heh

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