Reformatting

sigh Looks like I have to do it. I have this annoying thingy in my System files called DSHOCLC.dll (or something like that) and it’s the cause of this little window that pops up on my screen. Since my firewall has blocked it, the screen wont load, and it becomes impossible to close, thus forcing me to reboot 8 or 9 times a day, which is frustrating. I have run antivirus software and Adware, but it turns up clean. I can’t delete the frigging program because it says it’s being used by windows. Anyone know how to solve that? if there’s nothing I can do, I guess I have to “reformat” which I have no idea how to start.

I have three discs called System Recovery. I use those, right? So what do I need to do to prepare for a reformat? Save all the things I need to disc? Do I just save installation programs, or can I somehow save the programs themselves? I have a cable connection…will that be cancelled out? Will I have to…do something involving my connection? How long does a reformat take…?

If anyone can explain these things to me, I’d be forever in your debt. My shitty computer has gone to hell. Damn ME.

1: find the disks used to install the OS.

2 (optional but a good way to be safe): do a search for a program called gwscan. you should find it on a part of gateway’s site and the file name will be a number. follow the instructions to make a disk with gwscan on it.

3 (opional, extension of 2): insert disk with gwscan into floppy drive, and restart computer. run gwscan, choose to write zeroes to the drive. This will take several hours.

4: insert the operating system boot disk into floppy drive. restart and run fdisk. make a primary dos partition using all availible space.

5: Reinstall OS. I can walk you through that process if you need me to.

http://personal.picusnet.com/jtmurphy/format.htm

It looks complicated but has everything you probably need, and works for ME as well as 98.

Just because something is in your system files doesn’t mean it’s part of windows. Spyware loves to go hide in your system files. My advice to you is the following:

Start -> run -> msconfig
Click on the last tab, Startup

Try to see if you can find “DSHOCLC.dll” in the startup programs.

If you do find it, uncheck it and reboot.

If everything works perfectly then your problem is solved. If windows does not load properly, then simply reboot into safe mode and recheck the program in the start up.

If however, you don’t find the file, then try this:

Reboot into safe mode, go to where the file is, and delete it manually. You might want to save a copy of it to a zip file in case you need to restore it. Now reboot normally, if everything works so much the better, if there’s a problem, reboot into safe mode and restore the file from the backup you made.

THanks guys. I’ll try DS’ method first. How do I run safe mode in ME again…?

If you’re going to format, just type “format C:”

>>;;

And hopefully you wont be putting ME back on there once you take the disk to bare metal, right?

I vote for upgrading to XP. What are the advantages of ME anyway?

Well I have no idea how to install XP…like where do I get that system from? I’m trying to do this the free way guys. I wish I could upgrade, but yeah, where do I get XP from…

Alright, you access safe mode by pressing the F8 key during bott up (just after the screen where all your drives are listed). If you don’t know where exactly to press it, then hit F8 contantly while you’re PC boots.

You might not be able to access the starup programs using msconfig in ME. if that doesn’t work, here’s the other way to get to it.

Start -> Programs -> Acessories -> System Tools -> Click System Information

In the programs that loads, go to the tools menu and select tha startup programs options (if I recall the name correctly, if not look around, it’s in one of the windows under tools).

Oh and never reformat your C: like Devillion said, you always want to use

format c: /s

The /s is what makes it bootable.

Well, you could use a p2p client, or a bittorent site to find it for free. That or you could just go to a free alternative to windows.

You could Invest in Lunix, ok For web browsing but not for Games. I think the Emus (like Zsnes) are about a vertion behind their Windows Counter parts.

Big Nutter
Why don’t you like me? pouts