Reinstalling Windows ME

[Angus]

Trying to reinstall ME on my sister's laptop but it just doesn't want to play...

Runs scandisk, fails, runs scandisk again (does this 10 times)

Then says it can't continue with the installation unless scandisk successfully completes.

Is it likely to be a virus that I can remove somehow, or is it likely to be a new hard drive?? The laptop doesn't have a history of crashing which makes me reluctant to think it's the hard drive.

Reinstalling windows because of the amount of spyware, unwanted software that my sister has ended up with.

[directhex]

how are you running the installer?

[Angus]

from within windows - can't find an option in the bios to autorun from the cd

[Grey M@a]

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Grab the Windows ME boot disks off there and create the floppy disks when you run the installer for it. Once you have these go into the bios and tell it to boot from floppy, this will get you into a Dos type environment. Simply type the drive letter of your vd and press enter then type setup.exe and that should do it. Windows ME was always iffy on the installer especially from windows.

Also out of interest, is the CD you are using a Windows ME disk or is it one of those recovery disks you generally get with laptops?

[directhex]

i'd add a "format c:" suggestion whilst you're in ms-dos

assuming you want a proper fresh install

[Angus]

Grey - cheers will try that later. Me Disc is a proper one, think the laptop was originally an Evesham from when they gave proper discs with their systems.

[Angus]

Tried running the boot disk but still won't play. System tells me to remove the discs.

[yamangman]

Not a boot disk then. Or it's corrupt.

[Brodieman]

you can download a Win ME boot disk here.

You could also try using switch... ie..

setup.exe /is
(which would prevent scandisk running... the list of switches is here).

Let us know if this sorts the problem..