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knowing when to use these commands???

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by al guzman

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I have some questions to ask about pc troubleshooting. When a computer Win98 doesn't boot up and you get the windows protection error or any other error that doesn't allow windows to boot. I would normally reboot hitting the ctrl button to get into safe mode. Then run scan disk. If that doesn't work I would disable all startup apps using msconfig. I then would go to dos and run scanreg.exe. When that doesn't work comes my question. When should I decide to run scanreg /restore, fdisk /mbr,or just reinstall the operating system??? Aslo by running scanreg /restore is that the same as running system restore in Windows ME? The last question is running Fdisk /mbr, which to my understanding rewrites you master boot record, does that haveany effect to helping a computer boot back up??
Thanks for you help and expertise.. Al Guzman

7 replies

by dmiles

Scanreg /restoring a corrupt registry files,when getting application and stop errors at startup.
Fdisk /mbr-Only updates the MBR when no boot record exist,or the boot record is corrupt and you are getting error at startup.
Reinstalling the operating system when all other alternatives are exhausted and time consuming troublshooting whould be more fesible to reinstall.
Yes,at the end of the ROM BIOS bootstrap routine,the BIOS reads and executes the first physical sector of the first floppy or hard disk on the system.The first sector is called mbr
When all else fails and frustration starts to set in reinstal.

by csmith

Hi Al:
If you can't boot, you can't use msconfig.
You must use "step by step" as the troubleshooting method.
On the MBR. If the MBR is corrupted, yes, Fdisk /mbr can help.
If that doesn't work, try the SYS command.
That will rewite the System Files, if they are corrupt, this will help.
How much effort to put into the recovery is dependent on how valuable the data is, do you have backup (Tape, Ghost,etc.), and time.
A trick on reinstalls is to have a MSBATCH.INF floppy for the PC.
Then you can walk away, and the install will be totally automatic. (Including the Product Key.)

by b_pope

sounds like your having these problems alot,might be a good idea to take alook at some of the programs you have installed first.
fdisking is fine but if you put all the same programs back on you'll probably end up with same problems.

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