Quote:
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Originally Posted by pacaveli
alright, im gonna be frank with u, i understood like 5 words that u said, so uhhhh can u dumb it down a notch and go step by step
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Sorry, maybe this will help. Forgive the spoon-feeding, if there are parts that I detail too well...
1. Open Windows Explorer, using either the Windows key + 'E' macro, or using whatever method you prefer.
2. Find the C: drive on the Explorer window. Right-click on the C: drive, and left click on Properties on the context menu that pops up.
3. Find and select the 'Tools' tab in the resultant window.
4. Choose the option to 'Scan this drive for errors', and select 'Fix automatically'.
5. If Windoze reports "Scandisk found errors on this drive and fixed them all." you may be fortunate enough that your computer will begin behaving again. If it doesn't, you may want to follow the steps below, or simply skip to step 9.
6. Scan your computer for viruses. I like the online virus scanners, but that likely won't be an option for you because they're usually either dependant on Active X controls (IE required) and/or Java (the problem you're having). Interestingly, some virii are 'smart' enough to attempt to prevent you from scanning for them and removing them. If you have an up to date virus scanner installed, you can try it but if it appears to be running and doesn't find anything you really can't necessarily trust the results.
7. Scan your computer for spyware/trojans/New.net/crap. Remove it, delete it, purge it from your system in whatever way you are able to.
8. The easiest way to get rid of problems caused by malicious software (items 6 & 7) is IMHO to re-partition and reformat your computer, then reload your operating system. This is of course DATA DESTRUCTIVE, so make sure you back up anything you care about. This may include tax returns, photos of your date, or your bookmarks file. My buddy always forgets to back up his bookmarks before he does this, so it is a source of much amusement for me.
9. Ideally, you already have a Windows 98 startup disk. You really don't want to have to create one on this computer, because we suspect it's infected and your startup disk would therefore also be infected. If you have one great, if you can make one on a friend's machine that isn't fsck'ed, fine. If you have no other option, proceed without. <sigh>
10. Shut the power off to your computer.
11. Boot from your Startup Disk, if you have one. You won't need CD-Rom support just yet, so select "Boot without..." for now.
12. Once you're up and running, type "FDISK" without the quotes. If it prompts you about whether you want large disk support or not, select 'Yes'.
13. Hopefully, your hard drive has only one partition. Select 'Delete Partition' and follow the prompts through to delete your primary disk partition.
14. Select "Create Primary Disk partition" and tell it you want to use all the space available. If you get prompted to make it active, do so - you'll need the boot partition active.
15. ESC out of the FDISK routine once you're done configuring your partitions, and reboot, again from your startup disk. (If you don't have one, or can't get one, you'll have to boot from the CD-Rom and search the disk for the FDISK and FORMAT commands. It's a large pain-in-the-ass (PITA), and I hope you have a good startup disk).
16. Now you can enable CD-Rom support during the boot. Once you're up and running, type the following (again without the quotes) at the DOS prompt: "FORMAT C:/Q/U/S". I think with Win98 the /U switch is redundant, but I still use it. Can't hurt, right?
17. Okay, you've got a formatted, bootable C: drive. Remove the floppy disk from the drive.
18. Type "C:" and hit [Enter]
19. Type "md W98_flat [Enter]"
20. Type "copy D:\Win98\*.* c:\win98_flat [Enter]"
21. Once the files have copied, remove the CD-Rom from your drive and reboot.
22. Type "cd w98_flat [Enter]"
23. Type "setup [Enter]"
And from there you're on your own. The operating system should install itself from there just fine, and if you're ever prompted to put your Windoze 98 disk in the drive again, just browse to that W98_flat directory in the dialog that's asking for it.
Good luck.
*EDIT - almost forgot the most important steps!! If you have it available, install an antivirus product before you connect to the internet. If you don't, you should get one ASAP, but first hit the Windows Update site and download and install all available critical updates. Keep doing that until there are no more.
THEN, once you've installed some anti-virus (and maybe anti-spyware) hit the
www.mozilla.org site and download Firefox and Thunderbird. They'll help keep your computer running smoothly by encouraging you to not use the security hole ridden apps built into Windoze. BAHAHAA - M$ actually released a picture of the MSN Search site on a Firefox browser as a press release yesterday.
Of course, they're denying it ever happened by now...
