Self inflected mortal wound.

I'm working on a friend's Toshiba Satellite 205CDS. The owner, and a buddy, were trying to load AOL. It appeared to them that they didn't have enough disk space on the 1 gig hard drive, so they start deleteing files, to the point where the system wouldn't even attempt to boot.

Since I received the laptop, I've run sys to replace the dos system files. That allowed me to boot. Trying to go into Win95, there was a whole slew of vxd drivers missing out of c:\windows\system\vmm32. Since the original cab files were in c:\windows\options\cabs, I was able to use extract and reload the missing vxd files. This got the system to the point where it tries to load windows. However, it stops and dumps me back into dos. No error messages displayed.

Searching around, I noticed that the c:\recycled is full. So, I imagine, everything they deleted is still in the Recycle Bin. Question: Is there a dos program that would restore all the deleted files back to their original loactions, like you can from within windows?

I don't have a recovery, setup or boot disk. oemsetup is in c:\windows\options\cab, but requires a setup disk. No solution there. If anyone has any ideas, I would be more than appreciative for any help given.

TIA -mk

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If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

The boot disk dhould be easy if the comnputer is running. See Boot Disk for methods for it and what files you may want. You can also download disk maker from BootDisk.Com and several other sites.

Since you have the cab files and the computer is already bootable, you can move the cab files to a directory outside of Windows and reinstall from there. At the C:\> prompt type:
md win95
cd win95
copy c:\windows\options\cabs\*.*
Make sure setup.exe is among those files. Some manufactures don't include the ability to install without their recovery disk.

Now you can virtually delete every other directory on the drive and reinstall.

CAUTION:
Make sure you have the OEM ID number before you delete Windows. Also, if they are there, copy the CDROM DOS drivers and their ommand lines in the CONFIG.SYS. See Windows 95 Installation for step by step ideas and methods to get the OEM number.

Another program you might find useful is Emergency Windows 95. If soembody knows what files are needed to run the Recycle Bin, you could add those and use the program to restore the deleted files. I haven't worked on that angle yet.

If there is nothing that is needed, it is easier to reinstall.
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My
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
Dennis
Politalk

Eeyore,

I don't know what a boot disk would give me, that I don't already have. I can get to, and run, all the programs in c:\windows\command. The problem is I don't have a setup disk to re-install. Like being between a rock and a hard place. Ideally, I would hope that there is a DOS version of the Recycle Bin Restore.

Thank you for your efforts. -mk

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If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

Can you boot to safe mode?

Hello,
Just shooting at the moon here, but I think he says he has an OEMSETUP.EXE (which is asking for a setup disk) and not a SETUP.EXE file.
Could it be possible to copy SETUP.EXE from another computer and running it?

Dave


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