PC Problem: Windows ME Won't boot!

[Swells]

I lent my girlfriend my copy of Max Payne 2, since I wasn't playing and her brother wanted to give it a try. She gets home and starts up the install process. She says she left the room and when she got back, clicked okay on upgrading something (she doesn't even know what), and then the PC restarted. I'm assuming it was DX 9...

Anyway, she's on Windwos ME (DIE DIE DIE) and it won't boot up anymore. She says it hangs on on the Windows ME screen. Any idea what the hell could have happened? Any idea what to do?

Looks like I may have to actually go over there. :|

Try booting into Safe Mode and cross your fingers that maybe it finishes installing what it needs to. Then reboot and cross your fingers again and hope it starts up normal.

[Swells]

How do I get to Safe Mode in ME? I want to do this over the phone and need to explain it to her in the simplest way possible.

It's been awhile, try pressing the F8 key right after you see the Me splash screen, it may take a few times to get it right. I think it gives you the menu to choose how you wanna boot.

[Swells]

Argh, it can't even boot to safe mode. :|

If it was trying to install DX9 and it screwed up, either a System Restore or reinstall is about the only thing you can do. You can't uninstall or install an older version of DX over a newer one.

[John Prophet]

here's what you need to do...but she cant do it over the phone etc.

make a w98 bootdisk..or download one from www.bootdisk.com or a winME bootdisk for that matter.....but it needs to have some room left on it...cuz you need to put "scanreg.exe" on it.

boot to the floppy...run "scanreg /restore"....that will let you restore the registry to an earlier date....as in , before she did whatever she did to it.

If she could boot to safe mode she could do "system restore"

JP

[Swells]

Well, I'm assuming it was DX9, since she said she didn't know what was upgrading or why she had to restart. .... Dang...

Well, I can install Win XP on her system tomorrow, just that, so on startup, she'd have to choose what OS to go with, correct?

If you upgraded to XP, no, it would just boot to XP. If you dual booted and install to another partition, yes, she would have to choose. If it's not setup w/ another partition, then do a clean install . . . unless you need to save some files.

Try JP's "SCANREG /RESTORE" first to see if it works.

[HeadBand]

are you sure to get to safe mode it is right after the splash screen i have always done it before