Old win98 drive won't boot - need to retrieve data

[mattgyver]

I was trying to retrieve some data from an old Win98 drive that I haven't messed with in a while. It would *almost* boot--it froze at the desktop before any of the icons loaded and then went immediately to BSOD-- something like "Fatal Exception in VXDLDR blah blah has occured and will be terminated. Press any key to continue." When you press a key it goes back to the desktop with no icons and stays there. If you hit Crtl-alt-del it brings up the dialog box and you can select Shutdown, but that's it. It doesn't show any programs running. Can anyone give me any help? I've already done everything I know how to do (which isn't much) and I can't fix it. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

run the drive as a slave off another box to retrieve what you need.

 

[mattgyver]

I tried that; XP Pro doesn't recognize it. If you try to look at it in System Explorer it says its not formatted and asks if you want to format it. If you try to boot from the drive, though, it's obviously formatted and has Win98 on it. Any other suggestions?

 

[speedyduck]

Have you tried to boot into safe mode & copy the files? Safe mode does not load all the drivers and therefore more chance of booting successfully.

 

[yukichigai]

I would also suggest wandering over to knoppix.net and downloading Knoppix v3.9. It's a live-on-CD version of Linux (Debian, if I remember correctly) that runs completely off of the CD. I find it can access many drives which otherwise appear to be fubar'd.

In order to get the files off of the hard drive -- assuming Knoppix can read it -- you'll have to start up a Samba (File Sharing for Windows) server. Just right-click the desktop, go to "run command" and type "sambastart". It'll ask you a bunch of questions; make sure you tell it to mount and share all drives. Then all you have to do is log in from another computer with the password you specified. NOTE: If the computer you're connecting from isn't in the Workgroup "WORKGROUP" you have to log in as "WORKGROUP\knoppix", rather than "knoppix".

If you're afreaid of Linux, don't be. Knoppix is very user friendly, but at the same time pretty powerful. I use it to rescue computers all the time. Now if only I could get it running on that Lappy with no HD. (Doesn't have enough RAM)

 

[mattgyver]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I tried booting into safe mode; it didn't work. I have another project that takes priority now--removing some really nasty spyware from my mom's computer! I've tried everything (following Flying Penguin's removal guide was totally ineffective). I believe its the Aurora flavor. Anyway, I guess I'll have to reformat.

Yukichigai: I'll see what I can do with that; I've never ventured into linux territory. If I can't figure it out, I hope you wouldn't mind a PM from me. Thanks!

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: mattgyver
I was trying to retrieve some data from an old Win98 drive that I haven't messed with in a while. It would *almost* boot--it froze at the desktop before any of the icons loaded and then went immediately to BSOD-- something like "Fatal Exception in VXDLDR blah blah has occured and will be terminated. Press any key to continue." When you press a key it goes back to the desktop with no icons and stays there. If you hit Crtl-alt-del it brings up the dialog box and you can select Shutdown, but that's it. It doesn't show any programs running. Can anyone give me any help? I've already done everything I know how to do (which isn't much) and I can't fix it. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Can't say anything about 98 (original), never used it. But if it's 98se, just do an install over top of existing install (i.e., no reformat). That usually brings it back to life and no data will be lost.

 

[mattgyver]

I hadn't thought of that! That sounds like a good answer, it's just been so long since I've messed with 98 (it is SE, by the way) I wasn't sure if that would work. Are you fairly certain that would work, without losing data?

 

[thegorx]

make a back up image of the drive
retrieve the data from that

 

[Fern]

Are you fairly certain that would work, without losing data?

Yup, we use 98se here in the office. Rather than dick with around with the registry etc I just reinstall over the top. NEVER lost any data. That would be a problem for us as we are an accounting firm. If anything is lost it won't be from this procedure.

Good Luck with it,

Fern

 

[thegorx]

well you might want to be careful because it could be something to do with the format
I would just skip all that and back it up to an image file
then verify it and you're safe then no matter what you decide to do