AboutKevin Expertise I`m familiar with Windows 95/98/XP problems and will try my best to assist you. Feel free to ask any software or hardware related questions.
Experience I started using computers over 10 years ago and have grown to both love and hate it to say the least. I have studied computer programming and graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science.
Education/Credentials Bachelors in computer information science
Question QUESTION: My mother has an Acer Aspire computer that she purchased about 15 years ago that is running Windows 95. She was interested in changing her dial up internet over to high speed. In order to do this, she needed to be running Windows 98 or higher. I purchased a Windows 98 upgrade CD that was still sealed in plastic and had the product key. I turned her computer on, placed the Windows 98 CD in and started running the upgrade. All was working fine. The computer automatically restarted while running the upgrade. This is where the problem began. We get a black screen that says Windows was not able to completely load. We get 7 options to open with, Normal mode, Safe Mode, etc. If you open in normal mode, you automatically get a message that says something like Windows protection and tells you to restart the computer. If you open in safe mode, all we get is a black screen. Now we cannot see Windows 98 or 95. I have shut her computer down and restarted it about 20 times and we seem to be stuck in this loop.
Do you know of any way I can get out of this? The Windows 98 CD said it had about 30 more minutes to go on the install so I don't believe the whole program updated itself. I need to know how to finish the install or get back to Windows 95.
Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated. I hope I have given you enough information to go by.
Thank you.
ANSWER: Hi Jennifer, what happens when you put back the upgrade CD? Does it continue or attempt to upgrade over Windows 95 still?
Do you have the original Windows 95 CD also? Just asking in case that needs to be reinstalled (if something went haywire during the 98 upgrade).
QUESTION: When I put the Windows 98 upgrade CD back in, it is still caught in this loop of trying to open in safe mode. No matter what we do, we can't get out of the loop.
I do have the original Windows 95 CD in case it has to be reinstalled. Trouble is, the only screens I can see is a plain black screen or the screen that says to shut the computer down. I can't get out of this loop to even try to reinstall 95.
Save it on your desktop. Insert a blank floppy diskette into your floppy drive. Double click on that file you saved and it will give a warning saying that it will erase the drive and write the files to it. Confirm this. Once it's done, take this floppy to the computer with the problem and boot from that floppy.
Follow the prompts on the screen when you start it up. You may bootup with CDROM support. If prompted to enable large disk support, say yes also. Once you get to the prompt (flashing underscore), just type in the following and hit ENTER:
format C:
This command will wipe out the hard drive so no operating system will exist. Once the format is complete, insert your Windows 95 CD and restart the computer. Remove the floppy diskette. See if it will bootup. If it still won't bootup, you might have to load the CDROM drivers again and try to run the setup via the DOS prompt. See below for more instructions:
