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Himem.sys bad or missing...

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by blackcurrant

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Hi

I have a Windows 98 machine that displays the message Himem.sys is bad or corrupted during startup. I have followed the instructions contained in the MSKB article that describes how to overcome this problem by extracting a new copy of himem.sys from the original installation CD, and have also followed the instructions for advanced troubleshooting using the system file checker and configuration utility.

At the moment the only way to start Windows successfully is to leave the installation CD in the drive. When Windows starts a message is displayed asking me to choose between starting Windows from the hard drive (the default), or from the CD, and a timer ticks the seconds away. If I press enter before the timer is up (thereby selecting the option to boot from the hard drive), Windows starts fine. If I allow the timer to run out, forcing Windows to accept the default selection, I get the error message!

Does anyone know what is happening here? Why is himem.sys reported as beingcorrupt, even after a new copy has been extracted from the original source CD, and why the strange startup differences when the Windows 98 CD is in the drive?

Any help would be appreciated.

5 replies

by thechas

I suspect that you have a registry error that is pointing Windows to use a file from the CD, and not from the boot drive.

If you are comfortable using regedit, search for your CD drive (D:) or whatever your drive letter is. (leave out the ())
Some of the listings will be install locations. You should leave these alone.
Any file that is registerd to the CD drive should be changed to the correct location on your boot drive.

If you are not comfortable using regedit, run a registry repair utility such as Norton windoctor wihout the Windows cd in the drive.
It should find and repair the error.

NOTE: Improper use of regedit can disable your system. Use caution.

by blackcurrant

Thanks for answering. I have run WinDoctor from a NU CD, though the only errors it detected were missing targets from program links, all of which were corrected. Also, I think that if there were a link to himem.sys on the installation CD, the error message would prompt me to insert the CD in the drive, and also, if the CD is in the drive the error would not appear.

by vegaone

Hi,
try to make a sys c: from a win98 bootdisk.
maybe your io.sys damaged...
if no change make a scandisk before any changes.
if there is crossed files do not correct at once.
quit scandisk and make copy of your data

I wish this will help you

Regards

by blackcurrant

Hi, I don't think io.sys is damaged because the operating system will boot from the hard drive, also I have run scandisk before to try to detect any errors with the file system and none were reported. Thanks for trying.

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