Win98 Video Driver

You posted this question twice. You musta' hit the refresh button. Post a note to the Community Support board and as an EE Administrator to delete one of the questions and refund your points.

I don't use aol so I can not say for sure if you can do this or not.  In safe mode, I would open control panel, then add/remove programs and look for the installed popup blocker and remove it.  

Hello Vic. I don't think you'll be able to uninstall AOL's popup blocker without uninstalling AOL.  Before going that far, try disabling the popup blocker.  When logged onto AOL, go to Settings>Preferences>Marketing>Popup.  Remove all the checkmarks there.  Click Save. Reboot.  Then go to Control Panel>Display and re-set your colors.  Hope it works for you.  If not, I'd uninstall AOL and rather than reinstalling AOL, I'd go to another ISP.

I've already totally deleted AOL and anything having to do with AOL.  Still don't have video.  I'm thinking now about maybe reinstalling win98...can I install over the original and NOT lose any programs and files I've got on my computer??

Yes, you can reinstall over the original and not lose programs and data. Just don't install the AOL Pop-up blocker again. :}

vicnm,

Go into "display properties" and click the advanced button.
Click on the adapter tab. Set the refresh rate to "adapter default" click apply and okay out of display properties, reboot.

Cumbo

I decided not to reinstall win98 because the program I had wanted to format my harddrive first.  So I'm trying different video drivers in hopes of getting the right one.  I've deleted my display adapter in device manager and rebooted and I can get into windows without the safemode, but the resolution is still at 16bit.  Any suggestions?

vicnm,
  We're making progress. You can now boot into normal mode and get graphics. It is not all "garbled".  Windows has installed its standard VGA video driver. Now make sure all remenance of the original driver is gone.

When you said you downloaded recent drivers, did you do it from the manufacturing site or from driverguide.com.   Since drivers from driverguide are donated by individuals, you are never sure of their quality. If you don't have know good updated drivers, install your old ones from the computer recovery disk.

Let us know how you progress.

I've got the standard VGA driver loaded and when I use the recovery disk with the Matrox G450 video driver I'm back to the garbled screen.  I've loaded both the video driver and a monitor driver...both gotten from HP website.  So basically, if I stay with the standard VGA driver I've got a resolution of 16bit and a screen size of 640x480...this is totally not acceptable.  BUT at least I can see the screen.  What should I try next?  Could it be something other than the video driver causing this problem?

Greetings, vicnm!
> >Could it be something other than the video driver causing this problem?

Not likely, but let's make sure. Do a file repair. Select Start > Run and type SFC. If this does not work, do a registry repair. Select Start > Run and type scanreg /fix. If you cannot do the registry repair from Windows, do it from DOS.

You have done a scandisk, virus check and spybot check?

SpyBot [freeware]
S&D searches your harddisk for so-called spy- or adbots;
http://security.kolla.de/

AVG 6.0 Anti Virus [freeware]
http://www.grisoft.com

If the above fixes do not work, reinstall Windows 98 over the existing system. You will not lose data this way. I know you said that Windows CD wants to reformat. You need to "fool" Windows CD into thinking that there is no Windows system on your computer. Boot up to DOS with CD-ROM support. rename C:\windows\win.com C:\windows\win.old  Now get to the CD-ROM and type setup.

Best wishes, war1

viccnm,

Have you tryed my suggestion of changing the refresh rate?

It sounds as if that is your problem.

Cumbo

Cumbo,
     The computer with the problem does not give me the option to "refresh".  Now my other computer allows me to do that...but not the one with the problem.  I've been too busy today to mess with problem...but plan on reinstalling win98 tonight.

CRYING, SOBBING, SCREAMING!!!  Well, that's what I'm doing right now.  I reloaded WIN98 and in the process the program reformatted my hard drive.  You know, I can live with that, BUT, and this is a big, bad BUT, I still have the same darn problem I started with...no resolution!!  I'm still at 16bit 640x480.  I'm going to miss so many of my programs, sob, sob, sob.  But at least I got the hard drive cleaned up!  But, oh will someone please help with this resolution problem!!

vicnm,
   Sorry to hear about the reformat. Did you rename win.com to win.old first?

Did all the drivers loaded correctly? No yellow question marks in Device Manager? Did the Matron display driver load correctly? If the Matron loaded correctly, right click on a blank area of the Desktop and select Properties > Settings. Drag the slider to the resolution you want.

Yes, I renamed win.com to win.old first...that's why I was so surprised when the computer started formatting.  Is there anyway to recover any information that was on the hard drive?  I haven't loaded the drivers yet...just used the disk that reinstalled the win98 and reformatted the harddrive.  I would love to get back just a couple of my documents if possible...the rest I can reload once I get the resolution problem solved.  Thanks for staying with me on this one.  

vicnm,
  If the harddrive is really reformatted, there nothing easy or inexpensive that you can do to recovery the data. You can take your disk to a disk recovery shop to recover the data. I should have suggested to back up important documents first.

Sorry, war1

If your computer is a name brand and you use a restore disk
it will reformat most of the time..

If you have a Win98 CD, you should reinstall by using the setup in the Win98 Folder and not the root Folder.

Cumbo

Do any of the disk recovery software work?

vicnm,
   Disk recovery software will not work after a reformat. A professional can do it Look in the phone book. There should be a disk recovery shop near you. Here is one near me. You can call the 800 number and asks some questions and get an idea of cost.

http://www.data-master.com/

Okay, I found some software that actually recovered some of my files.  I'm looking to recover pictures, movies, and some documents.  The software allows me to recover but I have to do this to another drive.  I do have a cd-rw on the "broken" computer.  Two questions:  How do I format a cd-rw disc?  And my other option...how do I hook up another computer (say a laptop) to the broken computer to recover these files?  

Thanks for your help...I think I can finish it up now!

war1, glad I could help. Best wishes, war1