scanreg /fix crashes (Win98SE)

First I have to say, that I am from Austria (Europe) and so my English maybe isnt perfect.



All program output is translated from German.



Because I had an increase of system crashes in the last few weeks, I decided to first make a scan and safe w/ scanreg in dos-mode and after this use scanreg /fix to fix the registry.


When I checked the registry w/ scanreg, it found no errors. So I satrted scanreg /fix. The check of the registry also worked w/o problem, but when the program tried to restore the registry, it crashed alread at the first file (system.dat). the first point (searching for valid registry keys) worked, but at the second point (checking structure of the registry) it always crashed, when it is at 0%. One of these things happened:

1. the pc just did a reboot

2. strange chars and colored rectangles appeared on the screen (see pic, the dark blue chars should be black) and the system didnt react anymore, only the reset button helped.

3. The same kind of chars appeared, but only very short, than the system rebooted.

4. strange colored chars appeared (see video), and after this the system rebooted

5. the picture just froze at 0%. again only the reset button helped.


The registry wasnt damaged by this, windows is running as good (or as bad) as before.


I only want to know, if this could be a sign for a damaged registry.


Thanks in advance.



Here is the pic of the strange chars (2.,3.; dark blue chars should be black):

<A HREF="http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/Scanreg_klein.jpg" target="_new">http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/Scanreg_klein.jpg</A>

<A HREF="http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/Scanreg_unkomprimiert.jpg" target="_new">uncompressed version, original size (1.22MB)</A>


Video (4.):

<A HREF="http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/scanreg_bunt.AVI" target="_new">avi, 5.12MB</A>

I also have a few other videos, where you maybe dont see the colored chars of 4., or you dont see the reboot, but you can see other things better. So if someone has a problem w/ the quality of the video, just post where you have this problem and I will upload this video to my webspace an post a link. The other videos are between 2.25MB and 2.65MB big (yes, I uploaded the biggest one, but it is also the longest one w/ 20 sec.).



@everyone, who says I should upgrade to WinXP: I already have WinXP in dual boot. I cannot get rid of Win98 completely, because I need to use some programs, which run in Win98, but not in WinXP.



I also have tried a few things, that some people in other forums suggested:


I renamed all c:\windows\sysbckup\rb*.cab files in rb*.old. The only difference was, that I got a new version of the crash, but I think that this new version occured the first time when I disabled autoexec.bat and config.sys.

First the screen output looked normal, but than it became this:


<A HREF="http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/Scanreg1_klein.jpg" target="_new">http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/Scanreg1_klein.jpg</A>

<A HREF="http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/Scanreg1_unkomprimiert.jpg" target="_new">uncompressed version, original size (792kB)</A>

After this again only the reset button helped.


Also scandisk in DOS + Windows (including surface tests) didnt help. It only found one error. This error was, that the free memory of the partittion is wrong. In Win9x you get this error nearly every time you run scandisk. When I started scanreg /fix after this the same happened as after I renamed the .cab files (I renamed them back in .cab before I ran scandisk).


I also tried to start DOS w/o autoexec.bat and config.sys. However it didnt work w/o confg.sys, because scanreg needs himem.sys. So I only renamed autoexec.bat and in config.sys I wrote a rem at the beginning of each line except the himem.sys line.

The only difference this time was, that it didnt alwqays crash at 0%. On the 3 tries I made, it crashed one time at 3%, one time at 1% and one time at 0%.


Something else, I forgot to mention: When I go to DOS from windows, the floppy-LED is alway until I return to windows or reboot. But the floppy drive only makes a short sound when I exit windows, after this you dont hear it anymore. So it semms, like the LED is on all the time even when the drive isnt active.

When I strat dos by pressing f8 at boot and selecting command prompt only, the floppy-LED works normal.


When I had renamed my .cab files in .old I also ran scanreg /backup and scanreg /restore, bit both worked normal.


I also made a few virus checks:

Before you read my logfiles, you should know, that on my system Win98 is on C: and WinXP is on D: (dual boot).

about one week ago I found a few viruses w/ avg 6.0 free edition. <A HREF="http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/avg.log.txt" target="_new">logfile</A>.

A few days ago I made a few scans again. I always tested all 3 partitions (also in the test I made one week ago).

First I ran the DOS-VErsion of Norton Anti Virus 2004 in DOS-mode, but I used a very old virus database form 11/2003 (because this was when my trial licence expired). NAV didnt find any viruses.

After this I made a scan w/the freeware program AntiVir in WinXP. The program only found viruses in backup files and in a uninstall program, but i think the virus in the uninstall program was a wrong alert, because the program is from a reliable vendor and also I had a wrong alert w/ this program once in the past (at this time the reason for the wrong alert was a defective ram). <A HREF="http://members.chello.at/edith.matuskovics/AVWIN.LOG.txt" target="_new">logfile</A>

After this I made a scan w/ avg in Win98 (the setup program for avg doesnt work in XP). This time the program didnt find anything.

<A HREF="http://www.nethands.de/pys/show.php4?user=MrBurns" target="_new">My System</A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by MrBurns on 07/23/04 02:54 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

My system still works, so i will not reinstall it, because i would have to reionstall all the progarms too, which would be too much work.

About the corrupted video driver: scanreg /fix only runs in real mode DOS. the only video driver there is the DOS vga driver, which must be integrated in io.sys or command.com (because this are the only files you really need for real mode dos). do you think, that this driver is corrupted? I could restore the original io.sys and command.com, it shouldnt be a problem.

<A HREF="http://www.nethands.de/pys/show.php4?user=MrBurns" target="_new">My System</A>

Take a look at the size of SYSTEM.DAT. Normally it's about 4 MB to 7 MB. It's getting bloated beyond say 10 MB.

I once had one at about 40 MB and scanreg just choked on it. It crashed (but I don't recall any video issues).

You could try restoring a backup copy of your registry (use SCANREG /RESTORE) but I'm not sure it's worth the risk if your system is working fine.

Another possibility are some third party utilities for Win9X. There was REGCLEAN and Clear REG (I think that was the name).

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

9 Meg seems kind of bloated but that's just my opinion.

Don't know why the /fix option doesn't work for your but you could try SCARNREG /BACKUP followed by SCANREG /RESTORE and restore a one the backup copies of the registry. Remember the most recent would now be the one you just backed up. The other three copies would for most recent succesful Windows starts.

Regarding DOS video drivers, DOS doesn't have any. DOS has driver for text based devices, CON: for keyboard/display input/output device. For graphics each DOS application controlled the display directly, ie no graphics driver.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

Einzige möglichkeit ist FORMATIEREN um sicher zu sein wie der 4ryan6 empfohlen hat. Wie ich verstehe haben Sie alles probiert in DOS und auch in Windows. Wahrscheinlich ist die Registrierung beschädigt. Das werde mich ärgern.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=23810" target="_new">My System</A>

In the mean time I also had the quick test of GoldMemory running for 1 1/1 hours, which is 1 1/2 passes. GM also didnt find an error. I will make the complete test of GoldMemory and also tests w/ other programs to find out, if my system is really 100% stable at this settings.


I also tried the following vbs-scrip to check the .cab-files for errors:

The program found errors in all of my 21 .cab files (rb000.cab-rb019.cab, rbbad.cab) except rb001.cab.

After this I renamed all .cab files in .old, so that a new rb000.cab was created at reboot. after the reboot, there was a new rb000.cab and a new rbbad.cab. the scrip only found errors in rbbad.cab. after this I ran scanreg /fix again, but it crashed again.

<A HREF="http://www.nethands.de/pys/show.php4?user=MrBurns" target="_new">My System</A>