Ive been working a computer that is having some issues.
At first it was giving my niece this error in start up. "Cant find system.ini. Need to run windows setup again to install the file. Press any key to continue." When any key is hit any and it shuts the computer off. Never getting into windows98. I realized I can hit f8 and it started into safe mode. I ran scandisk. Now when I shut it down and restarts, it makes me choose what mode I want to start it in. It wont let me start in normal mode. I just keep restarting it into safe mode.
Not really sure what to do next to figure out what is wrong with it. Should I just reformate the hard drive. Really didnt want to do that. Even if I did that if its a virus etc it may not get all of the infected stuff and it may have a reoccurance, right?
Operating System:Microsoft Windows 98
Maker/Model: HP Pavilion
RAM: 56.0
Hard Drive: 10 gb I think
Anti-virus Agvest-anti virus and also norton 2005. Agvest was just updated on 7-13 I believe.
Spyware and adware ran on 7-13
disk frag ran last on 7-11
ScanDisk ran today.
Is this a possible virus or trojan horse causing issues?
The recover disk only gives me the option to reformat the hard drive. Im not ready to do that yet.
Any other suggestions???