Hi there,
I'm trying to boot a Windwos ME pc but I keep getting this error -
"Windows Protection Error. You need to restart your computer. System Halted."

It was trying to boot from a floppy so i changed this to boot firstly from HDD01, then HDD02 and then HDD03. This allowed me to get abit further with the boot and I selected Safe Mode to start but this seemed to hang on the welcome screen and go no further.

I rebooted, got the above message again so restarted and this time chose Normal Mode but again the above error appeared.

Any ideas are very welcome??
Thanks,
Sarah

Boot to a command prompt and scandisk your boot drive. Some files might've been corrupted.

Possible causes:

Hardware problem:

The processor is overclocked too much or don't have enough Vcore.

Faulty processor.

Bad caps (capacitors)

Software problems:

The video card driver failed to initialise.

Buggy software.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. LLXX, how do I boot to a command prompt? This option is not available in the list of possible boot options?

Thanks,
Sarah

reformat with windows 2000. anyone who uses 9X needs their heads looking at

Very useful post, I am sure it will help a lot!

@SarahC
You will need to download an ME floppy image from here:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/index.php?opti...der&filecatid=3

and create a bootable floppy.

In the BIOS of the computer you must have boot order floppy/HD/CD or floppy/CD/HD.

If the PC boots, post again, I will try to help you with next steps.

jaclaz

Reformat with 98se if anything, make sure you use a oringinal copy, burned versions will load but they dont last for some reason. *0r use another drive and load your favorite operating system and copy your goods from the messed-up drive

I had the same problem on a clients computer after racking my pea sized brain for hours I decided that I would try small things to fix it. Well to make a long story short I pulled one of the memory sticks and it booted fine. So I shut it down and pulled the other memory stick and inserted the first pulled stick and ended up with that error again. In the end the memory stick was bad.

If you're overclocking your processor, increase the Vcore and try again. Or stop overclocking the processor.

I had this problem, but only when playing one of my favorite games. It would randomly crash with that error message.

Well, 2000 will run on any PC 98 does, will run current apps, and is based on the NT core....so i presume my post was informative and usefull.

ALOT of the older games will NOT run on windows 2000 however.

Also Windows 2000 Will NOT run on any PC that Windows 98. Windows 98 has much lower system reguirements than windows 2000.

I.E.:

Windows 2000
PC 133
64 megs ram

Windows 98
pc 66
16 megs ram

So at the bottom line windows 98 will run on a pc with nearly a third of the requirements needed for windows 2000...

those are microsoft specs. Ive had 2k running on a 12mhz 386

I've tried 2K on a 33MHz 386 with 64M of RAM. Too slow to do much of anything.

A 386 would be better off running 3.11 or trimmed-down 95.

Hi Jaclaz!

Thanks for your post and to all who have posted! Ok so I downloaded what you said and changed the bios. It worked from the floppy and brought me to four options: 1) Help 2) Start computer with CD-ROM Support 3) Start computer without CD-ROM Support and 4) Minimal Boot.

I presume I need to type commands at the A: prompt in order to boot completely and get into the pc properly??

Sorry but I'm no whiz when it comes to these things!

Thanks,
Sarah

@all
Here there is a new member asking for help with an unbootable system, probably UNLIKE you, a normal user has FILES, i.e. IMPORTANT DATA on the PC hard disk and re-formatting is NOT an option.
Besides, Operating Systems, EXPECIALLY Microsoft ones, come with a Licence and usually Microsoft likes to be PAYED for them!
So please do refrain from suggesting unrelated opinions on how better is windows 98 or 2000 or whatever and about how clever you were to run a Microsoft Operating System on a below-specs computer, this is simply not the right place for this kind of discussions, you can open a new thread for this.


@SarahC
Yep, what you just succeeded at is booting to the "minimal" DOS prompt, as for the moment you don't need CD-ROM support, select 4) Minimal.

Now what you probably have is a PC with Registry and/or some corrupted system files on the hard disk, but the fact that you booted from floppy should mean that there is no hardware defect.

Check, by issuing a DIR scan*.* command at the prompt, that you have the files:
SCANDISK.INI
SCANDISK.EXE
SCANREG.EXE
on the floppy, if not, sorry, you downloaded the wrong floppy image, and you have to get this one:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/index.php?opti...er&filecatid=40

Now issue the command SCANDISK
http://www.computerhope.com/software/scandisk.htm
to try and fix disk errors

Then issue the command SCANREG /FIX
http://www.computerhope.com/scanregh.htm
to try and fix Registry errors

Now try rebooting without the floppy and see what happens.

If it does not work, re-boot from floppy and this time try issuing the command
SCANREG /RESTORE
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/windows98/start-145.html
(article is about Win98 but ME is similar)
You should be able to select between FIVE backups:


Now try rebooting without the floppy and see what happens.

If it does not boot normally, next best option is to re-install Windiws ME over itself.

You will need the original CD that came with the laptop, or depending on models, you might have the files already on the hard disk, possibly in a \support or \cabs sub-directory in the \Windows or \WinME directory, they are a bunch of .cab files.

Post progress results and info about your laptop, if you have the cd, if you found the .cab files......

jaclaz

Hearyee, Hearyee!

I just hate it when someone doesn't know enough about solving the problem to be of any help so they tell the person to install some other OS, which that person obviously Doesn't have laying around.
If you're not part of the solution, then you become part of the problem. Put up, or shut up!

Jaclaz, that was a very good post.
As an old tech who's dealt with these problems more times than I'd like to remember, I would add just one little point.
If you've already booted your Windows ME computer to a DOS prompt with a boot floppy, you can then access the hard drive and copy those files that you mentioned right back to the floppy disk. Or, even run them directly from the hard drive itself.

I have a customized ME boot floppy that I use often and it already includes all those files, plus Deltree.exe, FDISK and Format. And, a cleanup batch file that will totally remove C:\_Restore.
That folder can grow to the point of crashing the hard drive and windows and should be deleted whenever possible, during a repair to an ME machine.
This command does the job very nicely.
deltree /y "C:\_Restore\*.*"

Carry on, Jaclaz, you're doing an admirable job,
Andromeda43
Just for grins, here's my ME boot menu.

Main Menu, Windows ME Utilities

1. Fdisk (setup new hard drive)

2. Fdisk Make New Boot Record

3. Format drive C:
3A. Format drive D:

4. Scandisk C: ( /autofix )

5. Scandisk All Drives ( /all /autofix )

6. Run "Scanreg /restore" (restores an older version of the Registry)

7. Rename WMIEXE.exe to WMIEXE.old (this file, not needed by Windows)

8. Run HOOVER.bat (deletes 98, ME junk files)

9. Remove "C:\_Restore\*.*" in Windows ME.

Type your choice at the DOS prompt and press ENTER.

Hey Jaclaz & Andromeda43,

I really appreciate all your help! I downloaded the other image jaclaz and it did have those files this time. The scandisk went fine and I've just issued the SCANREG /FIX command which is taking its time so I'll keep you posted!

Cheers,
Sarah

SarahC,

If an ME machine is working fine, day after day and all of a sudden its screwed, then it's always a good bet that something has gotten sideways in the registry.

The quickest and easiest way to approach the problem is to grab your ol' ME boot floppy and boot up to DOS.
Then run Scanreg.exe /Restore

Always leave a space before any "/". OK?

It will present you with a menu of five days of backup registrys that you can elect to go back to.
Start off with the day before and let it restore that days registry.

When it's all done, remove the boot floppy and restart your PC.
99 times out of a hundred that will work and your PC will once again be running just fine.

When that doesn't do the job, a re-install of ME is the next thing to try.
You can boot up with the boot floppy, select boot with CD drivers loaded.
Then navigate to the folder on the CD that has the Setup.exe file on it ,,,,and run it.
It will reinstall ME right over itself, preserving the drivers and data files.

I wish you lots'O Luck,
Andromeda43

Hey Andromeda43!

How are you? Thnaks for your advice. When I ran Scanreg.exe /Restore with my floppy inserted, it seemed to just hang on "Checking system files...." fro th eentire day!!! It doesnt boot without the floppy yet anyway. I'll try to get my hands on the original cd's, pc isnt mine!!

Cheers,
Sarah

Hey guys,

Thanks for all your help...I finally managed to boot the pc using a combination of what ye suggested! It boots up fine without the floppy now into the desktop. Now all I have to do is sort my word problem!

Thanks again,
Sarah

Windows 98SE English + Unofficial Service Pack 2.1a + Windows 98 Revolution (Lame Skin, KernelXP dll, etc) = BEST WINDOWS 9X

btw u can tweak ME using tutorials from some sites to make it more stable (but still less than 98SE) like mgdx.com,winhack.com,etc

@sarahC
Happy it worked!

@Dels
You should re-read my previous post, I am bolding relevant parts:


jaclaz