computer startup

[Arundel]

My computer has stopped starting up. It gets past the windows splash screen and then sits there with a blinking curser in the top left corner over a black screen. It won't startup in safe mode or any mode. When I do the step by step confirmation it comes back with himem.sys is not in your windows directory. I tried copying it in dos from a boot floppy but no good. I didn't install anything new that could have caused this. What is going on? Thanks.
SF

 

[CloroxCowboy]

Himem.sys is the device driver required by Dos to use extended memory (all installed RAM in excess of 1 Mb) including the free memory in the high memory area (HMA).

So you must be running win 95 or win98. The easiest way to fix this is to go to ANY working Win 95/98 box and copy the Himem.sys file. Then go back to your machine(with a startup disk) and copy the working file to C:windows.