Sorry I''m posting this in a game programming discussion board, but I don''t know where else to put this. One of the computers on my network won''t boot into Windows 95 anymore. It gives me a message that says ''Windows protection error. Please restart computer.'' right before it''s about to go into the GUI. I restart it and the same crap comes up. What''s the problem? I just reformatted the computer a couple nights ago and it was working fine until I tried turning it on last night. The computer''s a Pentium 166 with 64MB RAM, a 10/100 network, SoundBlaster AWE64, 4MB PCI video card, Pure3D voodoo card. It has Windows 95B installed. It''s a bit old so maybe some of the memory is crapping out or the power supply is on its last leg. Either that or I need to throw it off a building. Who the hell knows. I just want to know why computers are so unstable. Alex

Have you tried using Safe Mode. If you can''t get in with that then you''ve well and truly killed it.

If I where in your position I would:

Try safe mode, If that works goto my computer->Properties and see if there are any exclamation marks if so then disable that device and reboot.

If that doesn''t work try reinstalling 95 over the top of itself, it can sometimes fix it.

If that doesn''t work fdisk it and reformat


If you do get it working then try to get your hands on something like Checkit, I think it is free on the front of some magazines at the moment. If you have any fundamental hardware problems it will hopefully be able to identify them and tell you if it is worth the time and effort (and money) to fix.

STG:

Exclamations won't show up in safe mode because device drivers are not initialized in safe mode so device manager doesn't know if there is a problem with them. That's why it's safe mode. No optional crap is loaded so it will tell you if its a problem with an exteranal component or Windows itself.

Bigshot:

Like STG said I would first try going into safe mode. If you can get into safe mode this most likely means it is an optional component like a program or driver causing the problem. If you can't get into safe mode, then you know Windows itself is screwed up or your computer is screwed up.

IF SAFE MODE DOES NOT WORKS:

Go to DOS and doing scanreg /restore and resotore from before the problem starting happening if possible. If that doesn't work, then a windows file is corrupt or a component of your computer or your comptuer itself is toast. I would try then re-installing Windows on top of itself.

If that doesn't work then you probably need to start Windows clean. In Win98 its really easy to just install to a new directory but in Win95 its alot more complex as you have to rename a bunch of files. I would sugest moving important data to another partition/hard-drive (or just another computer on your network) and format. You don't need to fdisk. You really never need to fdisk unless you want to re-arrange your partitions or your hard-drive partitions are messed up somehow.

Anyway, if it still fails after that, then it most likely is hardware failure. If it still happens in safe mode you know it's hardware. If it doesn't in safe mode but in normal mode then it's most likely a driver for one of your hardware so disable every device you can in device manager (if you don't know how just double click the device in device manager and click disable in this hardware profile).

If you still can't get into normal mode with those devices disabled it still could be something left undisabled but more likely than not hardware failure.

If you can get into normal mode then go into device manager and enable one device at a time rebooting after each re-enable and when your system blows up, you know it's the last device you enabled so try removing it and having it re-install. If it still screws, try updated drivers. If that doesn't work then you'll need to talk to the manfacutuer of the hardware or physically remove/replace the hardware or just keep the device disabled.

IF SAFE MODE DOES WORK:

First try renaming autoexec.bat, config.sys, system.ini, win.ini and winstart.bat if it exists. Then copy system.cb to system.ini and then see if you can get into Windows. If you can then rename the files back one at a time and see where your system blows up and then investigate the files that blows up your system commenting it out and narrowing down the problem line.

If you can't get into normal mode with those files renamed then try moving out all the programs in the startup folder on the startup menu and if you can get in after that put them back one at a time...you know the drill. If you still can't then try disabling hardware as I mentioned above.

Of course if you have room for any important data you might have on another computer or partition and don't mind re-installing any programs you want to use again, it might just be quicker and easier to format and re-install. Be sure you have CD-ROM support in DOS. If you have another computer with Win98 you can use a startup-disk which gives you CD-ROM support for 95% of CD-ROMs (yes, it will work in Win95 DOS). Unless of course you have floppies for Win95. Assuming you have any Windows media.

Hope this helps.

Edited by - Sheltem on May 31, 2000 1:16:58 PM