At 05:57 PM 12/09/2000, you wrote:
>Hi....... My name is Kevin. I've got a privatly built computer and I have the following
>problems. Some while back, I downloaded one of those peices of shareware that McAfee
>puts out that was supposed to "clean up disc space". Anywhoos.....to make a long story
>short. With this program, my HIMEM.SYS was accedently deleted and I can no longer load
>my Win98. I've had no luck reformatting.....deleting my current Win98.....boot disc
>doesn't do me any good either<i aint profficient in the DOS commands>. What I'm thinking
>that I'm gonna have to do is take my machine to a "computer doctor" and have it fixed.
>Therein lies my question. Can anybody give me a ball park figure of how much this is
>gonna cost me to get fixed at a computer repair shop? And.....how long should this fix
>take? Any information that anyone could give me will be greatly appreciated. Oh
>Yeah......when I do take my 'puter to the shop, what exactly should I take with it<as in
>monitor...keyboard...mouse....ect.>

We have numerous guides on our web site that will lead you through
formatting and reinstalling Windows98.   Typically, although this seems
like a difficult thing to do, it actually should go quite smoothly and most
people have little, if any problems with this operation.
    Visit:  http://www.freepctech.com  and click on the Guides section.
This is a good opportunity to learn how to reload your operating system.
Worse case here is that even if you fail in this project, a tech can still
format your hard drive and install WIndows98 with little effort.

As far as visiting a professional tech to have this done, I would charge
a customer $50 to format and install Windows98.  It should take no more
than 2 hours.   I never accept any more than the computer, no monitor,
keyboard or mouse.  The main reason is I hate to keep track of a
customer's components.  As a professional, I have all of these I need.
The computer, ( I really hate the term: 'puter', by the way ), takes up
enough room on my shelf without taking up more room for monitors,
keyboards and a mouse.

If you need good boot disks, we also have these on our web site:
  http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml   just download the file, put
a floppy disk in the drive and execute the file.  It will build you a complete
boot disk.

      Bob Wright
The NOSPIN Group

ps.  For anyone who notices, we are in the process of moving our web
based free help from http://nospin.com   to  http://freepctech.com  and
we should have the move completed by January 1st, at least that is
my hope.

         PCBUILD maintains hundreds of useful files for download
                     visit our download web page at:
                     http://nospin.com/pc/files.html