In a message dated 4/25/04 12:30:08 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> I have a customer/friend with a Win98SE system that is having serious
> problems.
>
> Power Surge "took out" PS...
> Hard drive has been corrupted "somewhat", since computer will
> run perfect with "BartPE", and also with lots of things limited in
> msconfig...
>

         If there has been any damage done to the HDD during the power spike,
it's quite possible that some of the data stored in an area damaged is
unrecoverable. If there's no easy way to find out what exactly became corrupted,
Windows will report an inaccuracy in the amount of space available on the HDD
until you do a thorough scan to have the bad sectors marked. Can you run ScanDisk
from a bootable floppy or do you have third party software that will do the
same function? Windows won't and can't read or write to the disc properly until
the bad sectors are marked as such, and I'm not positive that it could repair
damaged data there either. If you do have to reinstall Win98SE, make sure its
not an OEM disc, because that will force a reformat and remove existing data.
The Win98SE disc will overwrite the OS, but if there is a bad sector in an
area where it's trying to copy files it won't complete the install.
         I went through a similar problem with my PC that was trying to
defrag during a power spike/dip and it corrupted the disc to a point where it took
three days of Windows ScanDisk and Norton Scan Disc to mark the areas of the
HDD so that I could get the PC to function. None of the OS's basic files were
damaged in my case but IE was damaged beyond repair and I had to "reinstall"
Win98SE in order for that to work. The disc installed over top of the existing
OS and I was able to reconstruct the data, but the HDD had a lot of damaged
sectors and I eventually had to replace it. It never acted right after that
incident.
         I hope this helps, but I'm not altogether sure this was what you
were looking for. If your question is "PC 101" than I am only PC 100.5 qualified!

Chris Ryan
[log in to unmask]

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