🚀 go-pugleaf

bman2@ix.netcom.com (Brenden Mecleary ) wrote:

>    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.

Most video card companies still don't have fully functional bug-free
drivers for Win 95 yet, Diamond, as usual is even further behind than
others, that's the major cause of your grief...good luck getting fully
functional drivers (my last Diamond board, the original Stealth VRAM using
the S3 911 chip was quickly superceded and Diamond just forgot to EVER
finish their buggy beta drivers for the card, and I just forgot to ever buy
another piece of their crap...At least ATI supports their own chips...

>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.

You and everyone else, I have an HP Scanjet IIP.  In short the 32 bit Twain
drivers aren't ready and HP is taking forever to get their SCSI drivers
ready too. Meanwhile, reinstall your 16 bit Mini400 and SJIIx (or whatever
your old drivers are..) back in your config.sys and voila, Deskscan II will
awaken, so will any other programs that can detect a Twain device (I'm
running Eclipse Fax 6, Photostyler 2 and Typereader Pro, they all work). 

>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.

Can't help on this one....

>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!).

Names of these files ?

>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?"

---------------
Jeff Weiss          Voice: (603) 352-8004
weisslaw@sover.net