I crashed this AM using Win ME, shut down last night everything was fine. Went to start this AM and all I get is C\\Win\sys\ole32.dll is corrupted. Explorer.exe will close, and there is a problem with powerproof.dll

The explorer box tells me to restart but then all I get is the Blue Screen of Death.

Scan disk will run if I reset the computer,

I can't figure how to get it to boot with the Win ME installation disk to reinstall the files.

I realize how spoiled I have become as I am now having to go back to dial-up connection and 266 K-6 from DSL and athalon 750.

Any suggestions on what to do are sorely appreciated. Thanks

 

Your best bet seems to try and get it to reinstall windows. When you say you tried to boot with the ME installation disk, do you mean floppy or CD? It probably won't boot off the CD(unless you set it up that way in the BIOS). If you don't have the floppy boot disks necessary, you can probably use your old computer to make them.

A last ditch might be to make a DOS boot disk. That way you can try and replace the corrupted .dll by grabbing it off the CD. Hope you get it fixed.

 

-Turn off the computer.
-Then restart, when you see self-test text appear hit the F8 key and keep on tapping.
-You should then get a Windows Boot-Menu screen.
-Pick SafeMode to start up with minimal drivers.
-Go to ControlPanels->Add/RemovePrograms and uninstall the last program you instlalled.

That was probably the culprit. However this doesn't always work because you can't fully revert your Windows configuration back to it's previous state before you installed that package. Very possible that the OLE32.DLL file was replaced with an incompatible version by that last software package. In which case, there's no way to retrieve the previous file.

 

I used to deal with this crap a whole lot. Your options include:

-Finding somebody else who has a windows ME installation, copying the corrupted file out of their windows\system folder, booting into your computer using a windows 98/95OSR2 boot disk, and copying the OLE32.dll file into your system folder. I am willing to bet that once that dll file is replaced, that more corrupted files will appear.

-Booting off of your windows ME disk (you have to go into your BIOS to select your CD-ROM as your first boot device...if you don't know what a BIOS is, you are better off skipping this option) and re-installing windows ME over top of itself. I don't remember if ME has a recovery option for a fouled operating system or not (my office went from all NT4.0 and 98 workstations directly to 2000), but if it did, that would allow you to have full operation of your computer after it was recovered. Otherwise you will probably have to re-install most of your applications.

-Back up all of your data by taking your hard drive out of your computer and hooking it into another computer, and copying your data to the other computer's hard drive to be copied back over. Use your system's recovery disk (assuming you didn't build your computer yourself...I have never bought a computer...been building them since I was 8) and put a fresh image that your system came with from the factory, then use the other computer's hard drive to take your data back over to your fresh install.

-Easiest and most painless of all: Buy a windows 2000 or XP upgrade (the upgrade is significantly cheaper than the non-OEM store bought variety...I get XP from school for $5 though ...I believe its the first licenced copy of a Micro$oft operating system I have owned since Windows 3.1...) and install that over your current operating system. It will fix all of your problems, your computer will probably never crash (my XP box that I am running right now has crashed 2 times since I built it 5 months ago, but both times were in the last week...weird...and I put this thing through hell and back...) and you most likely will not have to worry about this sort of thing again as XP and 2000 have a built-in recovery utility that makes recovering a hosed box much much easier.

 

I agree with Ribs/Spuns. The long-term solution is to avoide all 16-bit Windows95/98/ME variations and go for the true 32-bit WindowsNT/2000/XP. Much, much more stable and they have recovery procedures that don't require you to restore from scratch (you can preserve your previous Windows state with all your programs).

 

Thank you one and all. With your guidance I got everything rebooted and back up and running only took about 1 Windows hour or 3 hours in real time. Anyhow everything seems to be as it was before and working.

Now it's time to get my 944S up and running (new lifters next week).

 

Great advice all around. Short of getting a Mac, anything before Win2000 or XP in my opinion is pure trash, and I would include Win NT in that group. Our old NT workstations still floating around are as reliable as a Pinto. My Win2000 box however hardly crashes much less. And this is not to say 2000 or XP doesnt have a long way to go to be reliable. Ive never been a big MS fan but Ive learned to back up anything and everything important (many times during the week) in case the sheite hits the fan. If it were for having to rebuy all my software Id be using a Mac, but Im seriously considering setting up a RAID scenario on my next MS box.

Its all relative though. Our main Alphaserver at work running OpenVMS has run 6 years continuous w/o crashing while managing a terabyte of data traffic and 300 users. I know, what the hell is OpenVMS.

 

When was the last time you used an UPTIME command on a PC, eh?

 

udpride: open vms is what runs on alpha (just like the "other" os, linux)! yes - there are people out there who are listening! how much for a regular (533Mhz) alpha box these days? it would *still* make a good server!

getting a mac is okay, just format the hdd and use linux, but of course you guys are going to say - "but macos 10 is already freebsd with some NeXt thrown in" - whatever! i dislike the interface (is it the little apples all over the place? maybe!) just like on a win9x/me etc (little flags all over the place?). anyways, no room for gripes as i sit here on my p2-300, 192Mb, 9 Gb u160 scsi box running win2k. the other day, my exch. server had to be re-booted- it went 1,940 hours, oh boy. the os has no concept of the term 'uptime'. but at least it's not dos!

 

You know, if we could just go back to DOS we wouldn't have these problems anymore!!!

That and less colors. I like these new video cards and everything, but being color blind I don't care if it is 256 or 16 mil colors. Whatever.

 

deni-

Used Alpha boxes are floating around for dirt cheap. Small Alphaserver single CPU workstations can be had for $1500 easy. Their power will run rings around anything an Intel or AMD will do as its been 32-bit for years. Weve got a dual CPU Alpha DS20 in the shop on OpenVMS. I know some folks who run VMS and NT on the same box. Sort of niche operating system VMS is, but its amazingly straightforward and NEVER does anything you dont tell it to do. Im planning on picking up a used Alpha workstation next year to make it into a file/web server. Prob. 5-6yrs old, but they will run forever. We have a 25yr old VAX still kicking butt on our LAN.

OK Im a geek.

 

Wow, a VAX.... Well, I used those when I worked for NASA at Ames Research on Moffett Field and that was only 15 years ago! I'm sure they still have them and it's humming away rock-solid as ever!

 

That's nothing, Danno. I worked on a DEC PDP10 for a NASA-related program in Canada XX years ago. The thing was gigantic, rows of huge tape drives etc. When it went down it was like the end of the world was coming. My kids' PC could probably kick its butt.

 

We had a PDP11 until about a year or two ago. I remember a company we used to do business for had a cluster of 22 of them together! Oh the humanity! We do still run a MicroVAX cluster. They are so resilient we cant find a good reason to throw them out. Im only 28, but I can remember going to my dads company and seeing those HUUGE floor to ceiling Honeywell reel-to-reel tape drives. One reel-to-reel had the OS on it, the other had the programs. I can also remember those tape drives that looked like a tire on top of a washing machine. What did they hold? And by todays standards they held nothing.

I heard somewhere that the computing power it took to land on the moon was less than a current Palm Pilot, and the technology on the current Space Shuttles is less powerful than a modern PC, given that the shuttles didn't roll out until 1982(?) and the R&D that went into them was from the early to mid 1970s so they are toting a lot of 1970s computing on them. You are the NASA guy so set me straight on these rumors.

 

Does all of this mean that my TRS-80 is outdated?? HHmmm, maybe time to upgrade to a Coleco.