Cannot start Win98 in Normal mode

Should I try that?  I tried that when I had the problem before, but it didn't work.  Is there anything else that I should do before I try that, or is there absolutely no risks at all?

Neuville,
scanreg /restore will restore system.ini, win.ini,
system.dat, and user.dat. Whatever else got trashed during
your interupted copy is not restored. However,
if you do the scanreg /restore and (re)install into the same
directory you should be fine with regard to windows.
You could try the system file checker (sfc) instead of
reinstall.
Cheers, Bjorn

Sounds to me there's not much to lose...
Yes, I think you should try that.
However, sometimes, after a "clean" boot in safe mode, you can boot normal. That is, if the problem is not too serious. Even WindoZe has mercy at times.

Should I try that?  I tried that when I had the problem before, but it didn't work.  Is there anything else that I should do before I try that, or is there absolutely no risks at all?

oops, I posted twice by accident.

I'll try the scanreg, and if that doesnt work, I'll try using SFC.  Also, I tried the clean reboot, but normal Windows still doesnt work.

Should I use Safe Mode and execute scanreg in the windows folder, or should I use DOS?

Nevermind, I'll just use DOS.

YAY IT WORKS!  I restored the registry to the day before yesterday, and when it restarted, it said that there was an error with the registry and it told me to type scanreg.  So I did that, and it said it fixed the error.  It restarted again, and it works!  Thanks everyone!

My desktop and start menu icons/shortcuts are gone, but I have found them in one of the Dir##### folders.  I can easily restore those.  Thanks again!

Neuville,
I'm happy you up and rolling again.
However, since the scanreg /restore did the trick
it was actually esmogen who came up with that first,
I just added a comment on what gets restored.
So, I'll try to figure out how to get the points
transfered to esmogen.

Cheers, Bjorn

 

Neuville, my overall opinion is that you are attempting to fix problems by installing other programmes in the hope that this will rectify things. Invariably this just compounds the original problem.  You have posted 3 questions which are, in my opinion, all related to a common element, or at least it is a significant factor ie. - lack of hard drive space.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20559663.html
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20575983.html
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20570262.html

Once again you have mentioned "I knew that I did not have enough HD space to make such a big copy, so I restarted my computer during the copying".

In the lst link above, I commented:
"I firmly believe that your system files are now so totally messed up that you will continue to find errors and problems and, from what you describe as your current problems, I think these are serious enough to warrant a COMPLETE format of your hard drive and a fresh installation of Windows.  By just extracting some system files from your disk or downloading them and copying them into your system may effect a temporary and partial fix, but you will get further conflicts"

I still suggest this action and you should, as I suggested, get a larger hard drive or concentrate on doing a more minimal installation.

In the page at: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20570262.html  you stated "When I connected to the Internet, Netscape works perfectly.  Internet Explorer, however, doesn't show any pictures at all in webpages".  To which I wondered why you had both installed, especially in view of the fact that you are low on hard disk space.  You then went on to explain that you have, in fact, done the opposite by installing even more applications (see: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20575983.html ) "IE did not work properly, and I did not like Netscape.  So I decided to download and install Mozilla yesterday".  While it is obviously your PC and you can do what you like with it, Don't you think this is pushing it a bit far, especially in view of the fact that Netscape uses some Mozilla components and is likely to cause conflicts?

Judging by your question, you have less than 200 MB free space left on your hard drive for windows to use for virtual memory.

My Windows98SE's "C:\Windows\System" folder is 217 MB in size.  You could actually INSTALL a very bare version of Windows 98SE, with no other applications or utilities, on a hard drive of only slightly greater capacity and still have it run OK if you don't run too many things at one time, but it will only just scrape through (I've just done this as an experiment).  A typical Windows 98 installation is likely to use this space, and even more than this, as an overflow memory space (virtual memory or swap file) while it is running several applications at once and processing some normal to heavy web content.  An even greater memory resource is called for if you, as you suggested in your accepted comment to another member, play CD's with Media Player and such other things.  Burning a CD Rom would use immensely more space than what you presently appear to be struggling by with.

Installations also use up a lot of free memory as they copy their files into temporary memory before installing them.  You mentioned in your question at: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20570262.html that  "During the installation, the CD stopped a few times and it assumed that I stopped it purposefully".  I have to suggest that this surely must be high on the list for possible culprits.

Crashes with Scandisk are also a sign that you do not have sufficient physical and/or virtual memory.

I think you are scraping by here and exposing your system to the everpresent risk of crashing or freezing, and consequently corrupting registry or system files.

My only comment MUST be what I firmly believe, ie.  :
There's absolutely NO sense in persevering with these patch-up fixes which waste time, waste your points, get you frustrated, and lead to further errors as evidenced by your 3related questions in close succession.

Take my advice, PLEASE, just format your hard disk and do an economic installation as soon as you can.  When you get tired of one programme, uninstall the unwanted one BEFORE you install the next one.  You should have a very good idea by now of what applications you like and what you need, and you should also have some idea of what things to back up in case an uninstallation goes wrong.

Just another suggestion, note version numbers of things you install or upgrade with, and do so in chronological order as you do.  It is easier to go back to.

I have just done a FULL RegEdit export to a .REG file which ends up 10.5 MB in size.  While this also takes up extra room on your hard drive, renaming it to a .txt file (to make it safer to handle and no other reason) and then compressing it with PKZIP (which is excellent in  DOS as intended) leaves me with a .zip file of 1.04 MB which not only will fit on a floppy, but can be stored in a backup folder with a name short enough to identify correctly in DOS.  It's easy to unpack it (or multiple files for that matter) using PKUNZIP and then just renaming the file back to a .REG file before importing it back into the registry.

It should be noted also that WinZip usually works fine with these .zip files in Windows and PKWARE's syntaxes for use in DOS are available easily by just typing the programme's name in DOS, or by double-clicking on it in Windows.  Why not also use the PKware programme ZIP2EXE to create a self-extracting executable which automatically just unzips the contents of the zip file to the same folder when called by name in DOS or double-clicked in Windows.  In fact, all these standalone PKware executables and readme's come in just such a file.
PKZIP 2.04g was the last release I knew of (in '93!!) and is therefore was backward compatible with files created in all previous versions. There seems now to be a version 2.5 at http://www.pkware.com/products/free_eval.html, but I'm not sure how the shareware issue affects it. OR http://nct.digitalriver.com/fulfill/0018.4

Download PKware version 2.04g which you can use forever from any of these:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=pkz204g.exe&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=  

There are a number of Windows utilities to diagnose problems, repair them, and provide you with systems information should you need it again.  Familiarise yourself with them, as I believe you will be calling upon them regularly in the future. Save diagnostic reports as .txt files and just use "MORE filename.txt" to view them in DOS again if you can't get into Windows.

Get to learn, and take note of, the switches availabe for DOS tools, DOS versions of Windows tools, or Windows tools which can also run in DOS in case you need to use them in DOS.  Take C:\Windows\Command\EXTRACT.EXE which runs in DOS and can extract named files from Windows .CAB files on CD or hard drive under "Options".  Handy if you can't get to Windows for SFC.

That's the end of my lecture and you are welcome to take heed of it or not as you wish.  It's just that I see you tangling yourself up in unnecessary complications which I think could be avoided to a large extent.