Win 98 directory renamed DIR00002?

[colinyoung2]

I can't find this thread although it pops up in a Google search???
Windows will not load and safe mode, logged or otherwise will not invoke.
Any way, all directory's on C:\ have been renamed DIR00001/2/3 etc. I have renamed DIR00002 which is the Windows directory but when I type win, I am told that himem.sys is missing. It's not missing and is listed in the windows directory. I thought it might be corrupt so I renamed it himem.old and copied a fresh file to the win dir only to find that the same error come's up? what's going on?
I can't tell you what caused all the directory's to be re-named because I am trying to help after the event. Do you know what might cause this and what I need to do to restore windows 98 to this system?

Any help would be great

Colin

 

[KarveR]

After a crash or pweroff unexpectedly, scandisk will run.

Scandisk will rename damaged filesystems File000001 File00002 Dir000001 Dir00002 etc etc. Looks like th machine went tits up in a big way with a hard disk error.
install a new disk as master and install windows, from there access the old drive for vital and valuable files (some may be missing).

After you are sure you have everything recovered as best you can, run scandisk from windows and allow it to auto fix errors, this can take hours so go to bed and sleep well while windows works its stuff.
(remeber to disable screensaver and powermanagement or the process will never complete). ***************************************
Party on, dudes!