Windows ME will not finish loading..........

[WickedIntoAngel]

well the kids have done it again now when windows starts to load I am getting the blue screen of death and an error message which reads:

While initiating device IOS

Error: An I/O driver failed to load. Either a file in the ./iossubsys subdirectory is corrupt or the system is low on memory. system halted.

I have tried to load in both normal & safe modes but no matter what option I choose it keeps going back to that screen. Memory appears to be loading properly so I am not sure what has happened. Anybody that can help, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Melody

 

[wolluf]

when did this happen? What did the kids (or anybody else) actually do (any hardware/software added/removed).

2 things to try.

Boot to a dos prompt (option from the safe mode menu).

1. Run scandisk
2. Run scanreg /restore - this will give you list of dates which correspond to a good registry backup. Choose one before the problem started (if such exists) and let it be restored. Reboot and see if any good.

 

[WickedIntoAngel]

well to be honest i am not sure what they did. all i know is that they were fooling with the mp3download program (which we dl recently but has been working fine) & i guess that it froze because when they rebooted it went to that error screen. it will not let me into safe mode, when i hit 3 for safe mode the screen goes black like its wanting to load but then it just goes back to the error screen and all you can do is restart it. i tried getting a bootdisk from bootdisk .com but it wont let me use it. when it starts up i get an error message saying to remove disk or media and press any key to restart so no matter what i try i am not getting anywhere

 

[wolluf]

Did you read my post? The safe mode menu has other options - use the one to boot to a dos (command) prompt (this is not windows safe mode, its dos, and I'd be very surprised if it doesn't work). There should be 2 options (probably 5 & 6 on the menu) - command prompt only and safe mode command prompt only. The second is more likely to work if there is a problem.

The boot disk from bootdisk.com is an executable that you run to create a boot disk - not a file to put on a floppy! If it won't boot to a dos prompt from the safe mode menu, create that boot disk & boot from that & try the same.

 

[wolluf]

Sorry - I'd got it into my head this was win98. You'll need to create that boot disk to get to a command (dos) prompt with ME.

 

[WickedIntoAngel]

yes wolluf I did see your post, sry just been kinda hectic around here. I have the recovery disks for ME but Cdrom not functioning so I had no choice but to boot from the floppy. Unfortuately none of them would work except for an old windows 98 disk that I already had. The good news is that it let me get a dos prompt and then I was able to get to scandisk. For some reason those options for command prompt only & safemode command prompt only are not showing up on my menu. After running scandisk I found the dir all jacked up. It was able to repair most of what it found however I am still getting an error message which says that there are still some files with very long names that it can not fix. I can see the dir but I can't figure out how to go about changing it. I then ran a surface scan which took about 4 hours but it didn't turn up anything else. I did try running scanreg/restore but it just said bad command. As for the bootdisk.com I did not realize that. I did dl it to my computer but then I just transfered it to a floppy. So what you are saying is that I actually need to run that file in order to create a bootdisk, is that correct? Again I appreciate all of your help.

Melody

 

[wolluf]

Yes you need to run the downloaded file to create a boot floppy - and make sure its for ME, so it will have scanreg on the floppy too. The menu options are for win98 (as I mentioned I'd got it into my head this was 98) so are rightly not appearing on ME. As no needed for system files have very long names, hopefully what scandisk couldn't recover won't matter to getting you up and running again - though if the filestore was badly mashed you may be out of luck. Probably worth having a quick look in dos at the windows directory in particular - and the root of C:, to see they at least look like they have the necessary system files to start windows.