CRAFT

Advice needed here asap! I've really messed the pc up, shut it down last night but just as it shut down (windows is shuting down) I pulled the plug to the mains out. Restarted the pc but the wallpaper was all weird like an over exposed picture and the mouse wouldn't work along with the sound? 2 warnings came up saying ptsnoop and then Rundll both saying this programme has performed an illegal opo.... Also the display is smaller and the picture quality is s**t very pixel(y) Can anyone help??? Mrs CRAFT is asking the IT personnel at her works but any extra advice would be extremely grateful.

Cheers...CRAFT

Hanslow

Probably not much help but have you tried booting up in safe mode? Or try booting up with logging turned on to see if it tells you anything?

I turned mine off at the mains once before shutting down. Hard disk heads crashed on the disk surface. Created a bad block right where the windows registry was stored

Fortunately it (Win ME) recovered itself OK (I was quite shocked) but I still felt stupid.

Try also doing a low level scan disk in DOS to make sure your disk surface is OK and that you haven't got any bad blocks either.

BarryK

You have buggered the registry by the sounds of it.

You are getting VGA 16 colour display from what you describe, the basic windows default.

Reinstall windows, then reinstall your graphics, and sound card drivers. The mouse will owrk again once windows is installed.

You shouldn't lose any data, though may need to install software again as it might have lost its links.

A friend of mine did this when installing a game. It recommended that he "shut down all other windows" before continuing, so he did, he shut down windows, ie the operating system itself!!!!

Same net effect as what you have Mr C.

Good luck.

CRAFT

Barry, when you say re-install windows, do you mean from disc? as we didn't get a disc, on a registration number with the pc. It looks like everything on the pc is working exceptfor the mouse, sound and colour/graphics and as I'm not technically minded when it comes to a pc, if you could point a simple muppet in the correct direction in what to do to make things better again, we would be very very grateful.

Many Thanks...CRAFT

Dream Weaver

Graham - try this:

1. Your mouse doesn't work, so press the "Windows" key at the bottom left of your keyboard. This will bring up the start menu.

2. Press the "Up" arrow, and use the arrows to move up to the "Programs" menu, then "Accessories", then "System Tools", and click on System Information, which should be near the bottom of that menu.

3. A separate window will open - click into "Tools" at the top then move down to "Registry Checker". This will first of all make sure your registry is not knackered.

If this doesnt fix it, then go into the same Tools menu and try scan disk.

Hope this works for you, though not entirely sure if it will help.

Si

BarryK

Was this a second hand PC? If not you should demand your O/S that you paid for.

If you haven't got the O/S then obviously you can't install it. Oh dear.

Have you tried firing up windows in "Safe Mode"? Hit the F8 key just before Windows starts booting up, ie when you see the black and white writing appearing on screen.

In safe mode you get everything installed bog standard. Does your mouse work then?

If not using the keys as described by Simon, from the windows key go into "control panel", "settings", "system", "device manager" This lists all the devices known to your system.

Do any of them have an exclamation mark in a yellow circle?

If the mouse is there, click on it and choose to "Remove" it. It will ask you to confirm, just say yes.

Then exit from that, (use the tab key to move around the "buttons" you will see them highlighted as you move around.

Reboot the PC and see if it reinstalls the mouse.

I doubt this is mega serious and you should be able to fix it, but haven't you got any "driver" or device CDs at all?

fast bloke

delete your mouse, sound card and video adapter from device manager in control panel. Chances are you won't need any device drivers for windies to re-install them. If this doesn't work, go to c:windowsoptionscabs and look for setup.exe. If you have this run it from within windows. It will reuse files as necessary, so again you shopuldn't need the source CD

CRAFT

Nearly there now, we've just re-installed Win98, the mouse and sound are back but the screen is still all pixel(y), When we got the pc we had trouble configuring the monitor
we took it back and they adjusted something in the safe mode(I think). Any ideas on how to adjust the monitor through the pc and not the monitor. The picture does not go all the way to the edge of the screen as it did before(14" monitor) Hope you can give me some ideas.....

Many thanks..CRAFT

DominicA

seems like you've got no drivers installed for the graphics card. right click on the desktop, properties, settings, check what card it is using (should say there) if it is anything other than standard VGA you should be able to change the colours to something higher than 256 and be able to set the size to more than 640*480. If not then click on advanced and change the adaptor (to the correct one). hope this is ok as i'm basing it on ME....if not it's very similar....

Dom

BarryK

Yep, what Dom said.

Do you know what sort of graphics card you have? Have you got the drivers for it?

When the PC boots up the very first thing it displays during the back and white bit is the graphics adapter name and memory. Make a note of it. If it goes too fast just reboot it before windows fires in.

When you know what card it is post here and someone will tell you the manufacturer (if it isn't obvious) and you can go to their site and download the appropriate drivers.

Don't fiddle with your monitor as it is the PC s/w which is at fault.

BarryK

Go here and follow the instructions.

CRAFT

I think this is the driver.....
RagePro Turbo. AGP 2X
Manufacturer-ATI Tech-enhanced
Chip type- Mach64: RagePro

Hope this is correct?
Cheers'CRAFT

CRAFT

Big Thanks to everyone that gave me advice on how to fix the pc, everything back to normal now and we're well chuffed
Cheers...CRAFT

BarryK

Invoice is in the post!