Author: Laurence Chen
Date: 10:29:01 12/07/00
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On December 07, 2000 at 12:34:03, James T. Walker wrote: >I turned on my computer this morning and it fails to boot up windows. I get a >message "Data error reading drive C" and "Fail Retry Abort". If I tell it to >retry it gives me "cannot find a device or file that may be needed to run >windows or a windows application. It then names vserver.vxd. If I hit retry >again it gives me VSHINIT.VXD and again I get ndiswan.vxd. After that nothing >but a blue screen. I ran scandisk and tested the surface with no problems >found. I can boot in Windows "Safe mode" but when I click on "Help" nothing >happens. If I boot in MSDOS safe mode command prompt only and try to read the >"Windows\System" directory I get a data error reading drive C. I cannot >read/write to that directory. In Windows safe mode I can click on "Mycomputer" >and explore the Windows\System directory with no problems and the files >mentioned above appear normal in byte size. If anyone can give me some >suggestions or point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated. >Should I try to reinstall Windows 98? >Jim Hi Jim, I've seen this problem before, many times actually in the past. That's because I'm a network administrator, and I fix problems like this almost everyday. If you can boot in Safe Mode, that's a very good sign. The VSHINIT.VXD seems to me that your anti-virus is corrupted. My recommendation is to boot in safe mode, goto add/remove programs and un-install the anti-virus software. I believe that your anti-virus software went sour, and in turn it corrupted some of the *.vxd files with it. Also, do you remember what was the last piece of software you installed? I would also un-install any software which was installed in your system prior to this error message. This should bring your system back to life. If not, well, your last resort is most likely to re-install windows. Not a good idea, because you'll lose all your registry mapping. Regards, Laurence
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