🚀 go-pugleaf

    First off, let me say that I am not a computer expert, but I do
have a intermediate level understanding of computers and how they work,
and I pity the poor fellow who isn't and runs into this problem.  Okay,
yesterday, August 24th, I bought the Win95 upgrade.  That evening, I
began to install it.  Everything went fine, or so I thought.
    I managed to get my modem working after a bit of fiddling with the
options in my comm program, but my Diamond Stealth 64, which ran in
24-bit color at 800x600 under Windows 3.11, was only running in 16 bit
at that resolution, now.  I tried 32 bit.  That kicked it down to
640x480.  I looked at the driver.  It was the wrong one!  I switched to
the DS64 driver that was supplied with W95.  "The driver has been
installed properly, but there is a conflict, please use the conflict
troubleshooter to solve it."  <<Exasperation factor 1.03>>  "Okay" I
say to myself.  I start it up, follow the directions.  When I get to
the part where I determine what's conflicting with what, I find that
it's conflicting with an "unknown device driver".  Well, that
contingency is conveniently not considered in the help.  <<Exasperation
factor 1.76>>  I figure "That's fine, I'll use the drivers off the
disks that came with the Stealth".  So I pop in the disk, install the
drivers, everything seems fine, and Windows tells me "You must restart
for the changes to take effect.  With pleasure, I think, as I tell it
that it can restart.
    The computer starts as it should, then goes to that annoying blue
screen with grey text (you know, from 3.1, when it says "This
application has stopped responding to the system"?) saying that there
was an error with Windows at a certain address.  <<Exasperation factor
3.81, Heart Attack Probability 97%>>  I restart, and the computer comes
up to a little text menu ("Windows did not load properly the last time
the computer was started up."), with a timer that asks me if I want to
safe boot or try to normal boot again, among other things.  I choose
safe boot, and it starts up in 640x480, 16 colors.  But at least it's
working.  I remove the offending drivers, but can't install the proper
drivers because the Add New Hardware setup won't work in Safe Boot
mode.  Fine.  I restart with CTRL-ALT-DEL (in hindsight, I should have
used the Shut down option to restart).
    It tries to start.  It gets partway through loading, then freezes. 
Okay, CTRL-ALT-DEL.  I get the same boot message about W95 not starting
up properly.  Fine.  I try normal boot, expecting that Windows will
detect my video card properly like it did before.  It starts loading,
then goes back to the boot menu, frozen completely.  <<Exasperation
factor 10, Heart Attack Probability 83%>>  I have no choice but to use
the reset button, as the three finger salute no longer works.  It
starts up, loads the BIOS, then states very matter-of-factly: "Invalid
system disk, please replace and press any key".  <<Total
nervous/emotional breakdown at this point>>   I recompose myself, and
reboot again.  No dice.  Two more tries get me nowhere fast.  I put in
the Windows boot disk that I made during installation (thank God...),
and it started up to A:\.  I go looking around the Windows directory.  
Absent-mindedly, I remove the boot disk, and while doing a directory,
the computer says something about an invalid COMMAND.COM command.  Of
course!  I never did see COMMAND in the root directory after I booted
off that disk.  Luckily, I had made a backup of all my root directory
files on my D: drive.  I copied all of them back to C: and rebooted.
    It got to the lo-res windows screen where it loads.  La dee dee dum
dah dah...  It flashes back to the DOS screen, as it sometimes did, and
stopped cold.  It appeared to have happened while the AUTOEXEC.BAT and
CONFIG.SYS were loading.  Ohhkay <<Extreme disappointment>>.  I boot
off the disk again and delete the AUTOEXEC and CONFIG.  I restart and
get the "Windows did not load properly..." screen.  Fine, I know why. 
Just boot normally, I tell it.  It does.  Hallejulah!  It auto-detects
my video card incorrectly, but at least it's working!
    This morning, I switched video drivers, and it didn't conflict,
knock on wood!  But, it still isn't giving me 24-bit color at 800x600,
which I need.  I also have several more problems, which I would love to
have solved.  Here they all of them:

1) The Diamond Stealth 64 is not switching to 800x600x24bit, like it
should.

2) My scanner, a HP scanjet IICX, is not working.  It shows up in the
device list, under "Other devices", as HPC2500A (which is right), but
DeskScan II won't recognize it.  Neither will it show up on the SCSI
chain in the "SCSI addresses" program that came with the scanner.

3) Windows does not recognize my joystick.  I can calibrate it, but
there is almost no input when I do so.  (This might be a function of my
game card, which I have had problems with before.)  In DOS games,
though (like Descent), it works just fine.

4) In my root directory, I have two files that total 2.58 gigabytes as
shown when I click on them, but when I get their properties, it shows
that they are 0 bytes.  They obviously don't exist, seeing that I have
a 500 MB hard drive (so they would total 5 times my hard drive space!).

5) That leads me to my last problem: I cannot DELETE those files! 
Those two files, and two other folders all "Don't exist".  Windows says
"Cannot XXXX file YYYY because it does not exist", where XXXX is the
action I try to take (delete, rename, move to the recycling bin...) and
YYYY is the odd file name, like:
00.mpd.[00
[0016.2bd
[00162b.e0]

    So.  (He he...) Does anyone know how to fix ANY of these problems?
I would REALLY appreciate any help anyone could offer on any of them. 
I am still impressed with Windows 95, it's just that I'm negatively
impressed.  Someone please help!  Thanks in advance!

                                                Brenden Mecleary
                                                bman2@ix.netcom.com
                                                "Why me?"