NTI BackUP NOW trial version worked, but full Deluxe version errors? 1

[mrmomaz1234]

I used the trial NTI BACKUP NOW version for some time with great sucess. Bought the full deluxe version and now all I get are errors. WIN98 blue screen, illegal exception, unable to close packet. Any ideas? I used control panel to delete the trial version b/4 I installed the full version.

 

[ski]

Do a Ctrl-Alt-Del on the Desktop, shut down all programs except Explorer and Systray, and then uninstall and reinstall it.

 

[mrmomaz1234]

Thanks Ski-I don't understand closing all programs, but will give it a try as soon as ------- ta ta ta ta: I get my system back up!!

1- I downloaded the updates for NTI BACKUP NOW and for DISK-BACKUP,
2- installed update for backup now - did not reboot but,
3- installed updated for disk update, then
4 -let NTI install do reboot and in return,
5 -I got the Windows install wizard! - seem like I lost the boot record for my HD! [an't I a happy camper?!]
6 and no I don't have a current floppy boot disk, that's what I was going to do with the NTI. I do have an old Norton/Zip recovery set, but it doesn't finish loading. attemtes to get to safe mode never makes it-freezes up.

Any and all suggestions are good. I do have goood back ups of my data, so time is my biggest loss. I installed the new HD about 6 months ago.

 

[ski]

If you know someone else with a Win 98 machine, then you can make a boot disk on it.

Then, insert it, start up, select 'Start without CD-ROM support', at the A:\> prompt type C: and press Enter, at the C:\> prompt type fdisk /mbr and press Enter.

If no luck, the restart with the boot floppy inserted, select 'Start without CD-ROM support', at the A:\> prompt type sys c: and press Enter, remove boot floppy after system files have been transferred, and start up.

If that does not work, then you may be facing a HD reformat, and a clean Windows reinstall.

 

[mrmomaz1234]

I do have another machine at home.
Mine (the crashed one) runes win98SE but the other is win98. I think using these two would mix win98 with win98se and not be good....

However, assuming this would be OK to get me running, I think what you are suggesting is to use FDISK to recreate the MBR else use SYS to do the same thing. Do I understand what I am trying to do?

I would then reupgrade to win98 and add all my win98 updates.

On the same subject (sort of) read my next post RE: swap CR-ROM for HD.

thanks for the reply

 

[ski]

I read your other post, and as edfair said 'Go for it'.

Win 98SE is nothing more than Win 98 with some extra bells and whistles added.
The MBR's and system files are the same for both.

 

[mrmomaz1234]

I "went for it"-but did not do fdisk or sys as the OS seems to be working, but from safe mode. (from safe mode everything works as expected.)

1) What am I missing that won't let win98 finish loading? I get the 'windows loading' screen and about when I should see my desktop, I get the window set up wizard.

I unistalled both NTI programs but that didn't help. Norton Disk Doc, scanreg and scandisk found no problems. What about having scanreg restore a register from the day before I loaded the NTI programs?

2) from safemode, can I load the drivers so that I can get to my CD-rom or Burner?

 

[ski]

Let's see if we can find out what's wrong with the larger non-bootable HD.
Disconnect the smaller HD, reconnect the larger one(and also the CD-ROM drive if it was disconnected), press and hold the Ctrl key during startup, select 'Command Prompt', press Enter, type dir at the C:\> prompt, and press Enter.

If you cannot see the HD's contents, then make sure all connections are ok, and that IDE 1 is enabled in BIOS.
If they're ok, then use a different IDE cable and connect a different power lead to it.
If you still cannot see its contents, then connect it to IDE 2.
If nothing works, then the drive is probably bad.

If you can see the HD's contents, then use your antivirus floppy to check for a virus.
If none is found, then do the steps in my 2nd post to restore the MBR.
If still no good, then do the steps to restore the system files.

 

[mrmomaz1234]

Hi Ski: I can get to the command prompt w/no problem and all my data looks good. (using F8 b/c CNTL gave me weard characters when I typed in command prompt.) I have not opened the case, nothing has been changed.

I have checked for virus - will get new definitions and re check.

I'm puzzled (don't know enough?) about restoring the MBR. will I only update my system files or will I end up restoring my windows and/or application files? And will the win98 (not SE) put me back to a virgin win98 system?

thanks for being patient

 

[ski]

First, restoring your MBR and your system files are 2 different things.

Second, you will be restoring just 3 system files: io.sys, command.com, and msdos.sys.

Third, the MBR and the system files for Win 98 and Win 98SE are identical, i.e., you can use a Win 98 boot floppy to restore the MBR and the system files on your Win 98SE system without any problems.
However, if you still feel uncomfortable about using a Win 98 boot floppy to restore your Win 98SE MBR and system files, then go here to create a Win 98SE boot floppy:

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

 

[mrmomaz1234]

OK: so far I have done:
obtained boot disk for win98 and win98SE,
TweakUI to reset system files,
FDISK/MBR,
SYS C:, <using 98se boot disk>
SCANREG/status,
SCANREG/restore <old version> the restore &quot;failed&quot;,
NDD (DOS and Safe Mode) = found disk to be OK,
SAFE MODE, MSCONFIG, Diagnostic start up,

I always end up with win98 &quot;start up wizard&quot; (or safe mode or a: as expected).

I can get to all of my data, so the HD is intact, just not recognized by WIN.

I cannot help but thinking that WIN does not recognize the HD on startup. I think this b/c:
(1) none of my changes seems to make any difference and
(2) when I look at SETUP (at boot time), the Primary master looks strange:
Cylinder,head,sector are all blank,
size=60026MB
LBA Mode=LNBA
32bit mode=on
Block Mode=16 sec
PIO Mode = 4
UDMA=2
I changed it to auto detect, but the values are not stored in SETUP - maybe OS finds it but not CONFIG.SYS etc???

In safe mode, I can run my programs, but cannot access printers, CD burner, or ZIP (which contains much of my data).

Any other suggestions - short of format and reload? how about getting my drivers loaded so I can back up everything efore I reformat?

 

[Jomama46]

Check your jumper setting on the HD, the BIOS is confused about what it is seeing. Some drives have a setting for single drive with a secondary and another for single drive w/o another drive on the same cable. And dont forget that a Cold boot is better than a soft boot (reset) when you are troubleshooting anything before windows or sometimes new hardware. Unless your comp is Very old you should not have to manually enter the CHS data.
BTW, in safe mode Windows drivers and some programs are not loaded as they may be the sourse of conflict.
Tell us more about the specs of your computer and HD. You are going downhill. If you dont learn anything else, it should be that computers require patience as much as anything else. When you are in a deep hole, stop digging and reconoiter!

Jomama

 

[ski]

Some more things to try:

-Disable 'Quick Boot', 'Quick Power-On Self Test', or similar in BIOS to give the HD extra time to spin up to full speed.

-Insert the boot floppy, start up, select 'Start without CD-ROM support', press Enter, type scandisk c: at the A:\> prompt, and press Enter to fix any HD errors.

-Keep the boot floppy inserted, restart, and try fdisk /mbr again making sure that there is a space between fdisk and the /.

-Do a clean boot from Safe mode:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q192926

If the above does not fix things and you want to use a CD-RW drive to back up files in Safe mode before reformatting and reinstalling Windows, then do the following in Safe mode:
-Copy both the oakcdrom.sys file(located in C:\Windows\Command\EBD) and the mscdex.exe file
(located in C:\Windows\Command) to C: (root folder).
-Go to Start/Run, type sysedit in the box, click OK, type LH c:\mscdex.exe /D:IDECD1 (note the space between mscdex.exe and /D) in the autoexec.bat window, close the autoexec.bat window, type
device=c:\oakcdrom.sys /D:IDECD1 (note the space between oakcdrom.sys and /D) in the config.sys window, and close the System Config. Editor.
-Restart the computer, press and hold the CTRL key, select 'Command prompt only' from the startup menu, press Enter, at the C:\> prompt type win/d:m, and press Enter to start Safe mode.
-Your drives(CD-ROM, CD-RW, etc.) should now work in Safe mode.

 

[mrmomaz1234]

-Disable 'Quick Boot' - don't have anything like that.
type scandisk c: - still didn't do any good.
fdisk /mbr - still didn't do any good
safe boot from www... have not done that yet. things are difficult not having a working computer.
add CD-R burner support - my next move.
Check your jumper set as they should be - reset all connections while I was in there. no improvement.

I replaced the &quot;non-windows-working-HD&quot; with my old WORKING one and everything worked as it should. <Then switched HD so non-working is in>

While I was in the SETUP/BIOS of the non-windows-working-HD, I clicked on &quot;detect drive parameters&quot; and the system hangs. Pressing ESC does not abort the search. (the auto detection worked instantly with the old HD, BTW).
I set the BIOS to AUTO and it returns status as above (except LBA MODE = should be LBA).

At this point, I am going to
(1) contact western digital and see if I am still under warranty or if they have any suggestions (Any comments on their warranty?)
(2) configure for CD-R burning and get my data off,
(3) let window wizard do its thing and see what happens.

I have read that you can reload windows and still have access to your files/programs.. does anyone believe this?
Til later when I hear from WD or any other comments here.

 

[mrmomaz1234]

Can I installl NTI BACKUP NOW from safe mode?

 

[ski]

Save your HD's data in Safe mode and then use Data Lifeguard v10.0 at the following link to check your HD for errors and zero fill it if necessary:

http://support.wdc.com/download/#dlgtools

 

[mrmomaz1234]

I went to the western digital web site, d/l'ed their diagnostic program and the QUICK TEST said that my drive was good. The extensive test suggested that the data be backed up first, so I have not run that.

Their diagnostic program report said that I had a &quot;C H S of 116301 16 63&quot; is that the cyl head sec that I would put into BIOS? Seem like a lot of cylinders?!

So I went on to the make a boot disk with CD support in Safe mode as you outlined above, but didn't get too far. (Good instrucitons, thank you.) I can get to the drives, but not to safe mode, so I cannot run the backup programs.

I have mscdex, himem, oakcdrom on my boot diskette:
Autoexec.bat has:
LH mscdex.exe /D:IDECD1

Config.sys has:
device=himem.sys /testmemff
device=oakcdrom.sys /D:IDECD1

Booting from this diskette and holding the cntl key,I get a &quot;window start up menu&quot; with options to:
1. start windows from CD-ROM (VxD error *)
2. start with CD-ROM support (I have access to both CD drives, but get a VxD error *)
3. start w/o CD-ROM support (idecd1 not found error, VxD error*)
* in all 3 cases I get &quot;an invalid VxD from CDUDF(3)&quot; error when I try to start windows and the system then halts. (I do a CD\windows, b/4 I do WIN/d:m because that's where win is.

I don't get the 5-option start up menu unless I hold down the F8 key first, and then I get the above 3 options.

So why can't I get to safe mode? Seems like WD test did me a deeper hole?

I'll get the lifeguard program but doubt if it will work in dos or if it will span media like NTI will. But I'll try anything at this point.

 

[mrmomaz1234]

The data life Guard program is what I d/l'd for the test. It just tests it. thanks for the research though.

 

[mrmomaz1234]

I have read that you can reload windows and still have access to your files/programs.. does anyone believe this?

 

[mrmomaz1234]

I have always had trouble with device command. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with this config statement?
device=c:\windows\oakcdrom.sys /d:idecd1
I get: &quot;file is missing or corrupted: c:\windows\oakcdrom.sys&quot; It is not missing and it works in DOS?