Hello - I have another problem on another computer. I have a Windows 98 SE laptop it was upgraded from a Windows 95. I recently had a problem in it (I think a virus) and brought it to a repair center and they reinstall W98SE and did what ever else they do.

Now trying to connect to the internet is my problem. It seems like I connect but I cannot get my home page to load. It comes with with the white screen and says "Cannot find page" I have not called my IP provider to see if I am actually connecting or not yet - that will be the next step.

I have reloaded my copy of W98SE, recopyied any missing files, tried cleaning the registry with CCleaner (not much to clean), I did a scan disk, defragment, reinstalled my IP info and anything else I can think of to get me on line.

The main reason for trying to get on line is to use the in another part of the house - which the laptop is very convenient. I have not put any antivirus and/or firewall on it yet until I figure out what is wrong. I called back to the repair center and they told me that maybe my hard drive may be going but the never mentioned that to me when I picked it up originally. It doesn't seem like that could be the problem because everything else seems to work fine.

Is there a scan and/or way to check to see if my hard drive is really going bad??

First of all, you need to know what kind of hard drive it is. Maxtor, for instance, has a program called Powermax that will check the drive to see what condition it's in, as do Seagate and others.

But perhaps there's some simple setting that isn't right. How do you connect to the internet? If it's cable, you should open Explorer and go to the tools tab and click on options, then open the connections tab and make sure that your LAN settings are set to automatically detect settings. If you're on DSL or something, then that software should be re-installed and your modem set up properly. And if you're on dial-up, then you should set the LAN settings to not automatically detect settings and to dial your connection.

By all means, call your ISP - they often have good techs that can quickly get to the root of your problem.

where to I look to find out what kind of hard drive - in the device manager??

Hi WAGCON

You could try a Free Program Belarc Advisor

Have a read from the download page first...

Below is a small sample from my PC

Drives

162.33 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
123.45 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SM-308B [CD-ROM drive]
Generic floppy disk drive (3.5")

HDS722580VLAT20 [Hard drive] (82.35 GB) -- drive 1, s/n
VN62GECHR136ZC, rev V32OA6MA, SMART Status: Healthy
WDC WD800BB-22DKA0 [Hard drive] (80.03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n
WD-WMAHL1457953, rev 77.07W77, SMART Status: Healthy


It will tell you far more information... Good luck

Regards

Hello - Sorry it has taken me so long to write back but its hard when the laptop does not access the internet so I have to use our other computer and turn around and load it into the laptop - you know what I mean.

Anyways, I did managed to the the Belarc Advisor and the Seagate Diagnostic just to make sure and both programs said my hard drive has passed.

I use Internet Explorer 6.0.2800.1106IS
Is this the most current IE for Windows 98?

the hard drive info is:
Bios Version 7.33
64 MB

[b]Hard Disk Drive # 0 Belarc Info:

Processor Info Clock Frequency 133 MHz Intel Corp Brand ID: P54C

Hard Disk PATA - fixed
Location Primary Master
Manf IBM
Model DTCA-24090

On the Belarc Report I had five buttons that were yellow (the first five) and the remaining were all green


Does the hard drive effect getting on-line??
I read in another forum that when the hard drive is going it makes noises?? I have not heard any noises

Unfortunately I know enough about computers to be dangerous and most of the time very lucky.

I rechecked my setting on dial-up and I took off the check mark under LAN setting for automatic detection.

Is there anything else I should check?? I called my ISP - and they said I am connecting to them but still cannot display the page. They said since I was connecting - they could not help me anymore than that.
I have even sent Microsoft an email explaining my problem as well.

If there is anyone out there that has been thru this - please help me
I hope I am giving you enough info.
Thanks Nancy

The hard drive doesn't affect getting online, especially if it's working.

Some hard drives make noises even when there's nothing wrong with them. Noise can be a factor, but not necessarily. From the sound of it, your hard drive is working.

What kind of ISP do you have? Is it cable? Dial-Up? DSL?

If you're on DSL, it's possible that you need to reload the software and reset the modem.

If you're on Dial-Up, it's possible that your phone line is reverse polarity, but if you weren't having the problem before that shouldn't be the case. That can be checked with something like this.

It's also possible that the modem is not working properly.



Actually, I'm not sure what you mean. Does your other computer hook to the internet without problems? If so, then there must be some setting that just isn't working on the laptop. You might try to download LSP fix to a floppy and copy it onto your laptop and see if that fixes anything. If your computer was formatted and re-installed, there shouldn't be any problems with your Layered Service Providers, but if they just did a repair install at the shop there might be some junk left in it. Malware can often put extra providers in the list and when they are removed they leave an empty space and the list needs to be re-ordered.

You can download LSPfix here and make sure you make the window big enough to see the "finish" box at the bottom. Just start the program and click finish.

Hi,

I tried doing what you said about the Winsock. But before I even tried that I managed to get on line to my home page of MSN.com but could not go any wheres else. So then I tried the LSP Fix. After I installed it there were a few files that were missing so I extracted them from the windows 98 cd.

Then I tried getting on line again and the same thing - I could get on line and couldn't get to go anywheres.
I did noticed this time - once on line for a few seconds and/or minute that my icon for my dial up would stop blinking and the bsp would stop sending and receiving. Once it did that, it was like I wasn't even on line but I still had the home page.

I hope I am explaining myself OK.

I have dial up. The modem is brand new is far as I know. The people at the repair center changed it out.

Is there anything else I can try? Thanks for helping me - I really appreciate this.

My husband is really impressed that I have gotten as far as I have without going to the repair center again. Sometimes I wonder how good a computer repair shop really is??

What I meant on my last post was I have to download all your info that you guys give me onto my big computer and then transfer to my laptop. The hard part is trying to find what I can use - be it floppy drive or CD and/or jump drive. The easiest is the floppy. But I have just managed to find a jump drive that will work in my laptop now.

You might go to My Computer and Dial-up Networking and check that the correct modem is the one that shows up. Sometimes, the old modem must be removed and the new modem has to show up in dialing properties.

Herk, thanks for replying - I will try and delete the old modem to see if it helps.

Hello – I need help this time because I really messed up.

I tried doing what Herk said but still no good. I then decided to reformat the hard drive because I was missing soome many files anyways and it was going good until my computer decided to get hung up while downloading the cab files. I had gotten all the way thru to putting in the key codes and downloading the windows 98 disk to the hard drive. While downloading the .cab files it starting having problems with not finding about 12 files in .cabs (ex: poledit.chm / progman.chm / rededit.chm) then all of sudden no more lights on my computer were blinking. IT just seemed to hang there. Stuck with 29 minutes remaining.

So I decided to shut it down and try to start over. All that work for nothing

So here is my problem. I cannot get past the FDISK section. I am not sure if I even need to be there. So I started over with start computer without CD support like it said to do in the other forums. I thought it would be so simple.

It asks: computer has a disk larger than 512 mb / do you wish to enable larger disk support - I said Y – according to the forum
Then it ask / chose:
1. create dos partitions
2. set active partitions
3. delete partition or logical dos drive
4. display partitions

I choose - 3. delete partitions

Then it ask:
1. delete primary dos partitions
2. delete extended dos partitions
3. delete logical dos drive in the extended dos partitions
4. delete non dos partitions

I choose – 1. delete primary

Then it comes up with
Current fixed disk drive: 1

Partitions C: 1 Status: A Type: PRI DOS Mbytes: 2047 System: FAT16 usage: 52%
2 EXT DOS 1859 48%
nothing written in the volume label

Total disk space is 3910 mbytes

Then in the left hand corner is says “ Cannot delete Primary DOS Partitions on drive 1 when an Extended DOS Partitions exists:

So that is where and I am and cannot get past it at all – Please help me

OK, if I'm understanding you correctly, you want to format the drive and re-install Windows. Do you have any data on another partition that you want to keep? You don't need to use F-disk to reformat the primary partition. Simply format C:. Use your startup disk to start the computer and choose to start it with CD-Rom support. You can format from the a: prompt. Just type format C: and hit enter. It will warn you that all data will be lost on that partition and you tap the Y key and enter. Then you wait while it reports how much of the drive (partition) is formatted.

Once format is complete, you can put your Windows 98 disk in the CD-Rom and from the a: prompt you can type the letter of the CD Rom, which is probably one higher than it used to be because the startup disk adds one, so if it was D: it might be F:

You can tell by typing

dir F:

and if it returns a list of the files on the CD, that's the correct drive letter. So type

F: setup

and the Windows installation will begin.

By the way, if you really do want to delete the partitions and make new ones, you first need to delete the Logical Drives, then the Extended Partition, then the Primary Partition. Then you can create a new partition, though it's not necessary to reinstall Windows.

Hello Herk, thanks for helping me. I put in new post in this same forum, maybe someone from Bleeping computer can delete it.

I have gotten past the fdisk by changing my startup to start up with help from CDRom and that worked.

But now I have another question.

It is loading the Win98 but quite a few files seem to come up missing, is that going to mess up the setup??

I have been just skipping the files because I do not have any other options???

Is this OK??

Well herk, my computer just hung up on me again.

I am gonna go back and do exactly what you wrote.

I m y computer seems to keep getting hung up while all the files are downloading Win 98
plus it seems to be missing alot of files that I have to skip over.

Well wish me luck - here I go again.

Hello and Thanks to Herk and Old Timer for your comments -

I got my computer running again - but I will tell you what - I do not ever what to reformat a hard drive again. Too complicated.

Now I am back to my original problem of not be able to surf the net.
Does anyone know how to tell if a modem is not working properly??

I can connect to the internet but shortly after I cannot send or receive.

Please any advice would be great

The first thing to do after a fresh install is to check out the Device Manager to make sure that everything is working properly. In this case, have you reinstalled the modem drivers? I'm beginning to wonder if the new modem isn't behaving badly. Also, there's a chance that your phone line is backwards. If it is, it would work for voice but not for internet. Also, there could be a poor connection somewhere - a wire that's barely touching. I've often run into both problems. I carry a telephone tester in my computer tools - a simple thing that tells me whether the polarity is correct. I got mine from Radio Shack, but they no longer carry them. But here's one. If you have to, call the telephone company and tell them that you use a modem and you think your line quality has degraded.

Hello, yes I had to add my driver for my modem in which I did after the reinstall.

I have a diamond suprafax pcmcia 56K for a laptop.

Is there a way to tell if it is going bad??
When I got it back from the repair store I only paid $ 20.00 (went and found the receipt for it)
So I am assuming it was used.

I can connect OK - but is stops sending and receiving shortly thereafter.

The phone line OK because it takes care of two other computers in that room.

There are several ways, some quite technical, some a bit easier. For starters, here's a set of instructions with pictures for the most basic of tests. You'll need Acrobat Reader to see it.

Here's some more complicated stuff from Microsoft.

And here's something that looks more useful.

My feeling about this is that, since you get online but later it quits, that it might be a heat problem. Or it could be an irq conflict, which is why external modems are often better than internal - there aren't irq conflicts with serial ports as there are with internal modems and other devices.

Herk, just to give you a quick update. I haven't had time yet do you like you said.

Hopefully one night this week I can try the things you wrote about.
I am also going to try to hook up my external modem that I use on my desktop pc and see how that goes.


Thanks Herk

I will write back asap.

Well Herk, the search for my answers are over.

I have finally figured out that my problem is my modem.
I tried doing some of the things you mentioned. But that did not go well, so
I hooked up my external modem to my laptop last night and got online just fine.
I should have figured that from the very start.

I did figure out that I do not want to reformat mine or any elses computers in the near future.
But one good thing is that my computer is cleaned out.


I just want to say Thanks Herk for all your help.

My pleasure. Glad you got it figured out.