Hey guys, I know this is the place to go to get help,I check the board from time to time and know how good you all are at figuring out problems
Well heres a doozy!

The computer is a
Compaq Presario 5630

here's the problem
I have been having problems with... once the computer finishes loading you go to click a icon but nothing would open,woundn't even connect to the internet. well I told the kids I'd try to figure it out for them to use but never could figure out the problem and they decided to fix it them selves.but heres the problem now


they put in a "gateway" system restoration cd then they put in a microsoft windows 98 cd for computers without windows (I think this disk puts in windows in a new computer)

well what ever they did, it must have deleted the whole windows program
Now after you turn it on it goes to a black screen that says

Microsoft win98 start up menu
Windows detected a registry confiuration error choose Command Prompt only
and run SCANREG
c:/ (I tried putting in the scanreg and a couple diff. promts but only get "Bad Command" )

then it will say Cannot find Win.com unable to load windows

Ok so does anyone know if I can fix this???
I don't have anykind of back up cd (except for the ones the kids used lol)
but I do have another computer that I could maybe copy some file or something to put back into the other computer, I'm sorry I don't know a whole lot about computers to know if or what I can do to fix this
so any help would be great!

Also I can't afford to upgrade it right now so buying a upgrade wouldn't work either (5 kids so money's a little tight)
Please help!

Unfortunately, this is a registry error, and because you can't access Windows, there's probably nothing you can do to fix it.

If you have a full installation Windows 98 CD you should be able to format your hard drive and install W98 if that's what you are trying to do.

You may need a W98 boot disk to format your drive.
If you do not have the one that came with the W98 CD you can dowwnload one from bootdisk.com

haha, looks like your having problems with DOS. Allright, well if you don't have any back up discs (i'm talking floppy disks, boot discs) then it's going to be a little difficult but not impossible. This will help you learn a little about DOS too.

First and foremost if the default drive is C: then you can do the
dir /p
command, this will let you see what is on your C: drive, depending on what's left is what we do after that. Win.com is the shell for windows, it's the graphic user interface, but this should not mean that everything is dead, it could be just a failed installation. If the dir command works, list what is on your C: drive, depending on that is where you go from here.

The problem is that your previous installation was probably deleted. These restoration cds tend to wipe out your existing installs and revert it back to how it was when you purchased the PC. Your best bet, is to reformat the drive and try running that restore cd again and hope for the best.

Boo2u

I hate to say this at this point, but there aint no restoring that will do you and good at all at this point!

At this point you have only one option. As much as I hate to say it, Windows is hosed, there is no repairing it whatsoever!
Format and reload the system clean.
You have no other options.

Find a local tech shop and pay them for that.
Dont do it yourself unless you have done it before.

The Gateway restoration cd was ran on an HP.
That should not have worked but it might have hosed it.
Other than that who knows right?

You can mess around with this for days.
Or you can reformat and reload it in an afternoon.
Pick one

I also believe your windows is damaged beyond repair. You may be able to recover some of your files with a Live Linux. Ubuntu, Knoppix, or Puppy linux will run from RAM (You will need 256Mb of RAM) and read your window files. If there are any files\data that has not been overwritten by the attempted install of the Restore disk you should be able to burn them to a disk or if you have a LAN transfer them to another computer.
If you try this make sure you do not install the Linux but run it solely from the CD. If you install it you very well may overwrite more data.
You can google for the flavors I mentioned.
As far as reinstalling windows you will have to ebay or something similar to aquire a full "Legal" copy of 98. If you go this route do not purchase ME. Stick with 98se (Second Edition) or bump up to Windows 2000 pro or XP.

Ackan

Lets not throw another operating system into the mix of what might be basic users.

The next question should be what information is on that hard drive that you cannot afford to lose?

My family pictures. I cannot tell you how many times I have hear that one!

What about really important stuff like accounting records and financial data. Bank account records, wills and the like.

When anyone, as a tech, are faced with a format situation you better be asking about busines and financial records that are there.

Given the worst case senario, always ask the client what can you not afford to lose in the way of your data.

They will always say my pictures and my music.

But if they forgot about the past twenty years of business records or financial data that you just blew away then there might be a problem!

The question of what they can't afford to lose is not quite as important to ask if the question "is anything there at all?" has not been answered, since boo2u has not responded in two days, I'm not sure if he will.

I mentioned the Live Linux because I have used it to rescue files from windows partitions where windows system could not be booted.
The Live Linuxs reside on FAT32 partitions, unlike traditional flavors of Linux that use ext2 partitions. The are "All in one OS" with the burning software pre-loaded so moving files is not so painful. With a little research you can even find USB pen drives that will work in Live Linuxs and that would be even easier.
These are not recommendation as much as options in the case that he cannot restore the current system, which appears to be the case.

wow Thanks guys,sorry I haven't been on a couple days.
I sort of got stuck on the first suggestion, I was trying to burn the W98 boot disk to try to reformat the drive but my other computers direct cd thing won't let me burn it and I've been going round and round on that trying to figure out how to fix that problem to fix the first one
well I'm gonna have to skip that one for now and try Gyro's suggestion
in the morning.
I'll let you know on that one.
Thanks everyone for the help so far.

Haha... reading my own post, I hope he has a boot disk... Read Grinlers post, and if your computer supports a floppy, follow his advice, if you don't have any boot cd's or bootdisks, you'll have trouble getting to DOS, however a win 98 cd *I think* has the ability to let you boot to dos, it just doesn't have as many functions.
.

If you need a boot floppy you can aways go to BootDisk.com.