Has my computer died, or could I salvage it?

Aspal

I use an old Windows 98 computer with no internet access to do bookkeeping & wages etc for my husbands business and a couple of others. It has always been fine, but just lately has had odd spurts of losing control of the mouse - the pointer starts jumping about even if the mouse isn't being touched, and randomly opens programs etc. Usually it is cured by turning off and on, but today, in the middle of printing off my accounts etc to do my tax return (I know, always leave it till the last minute ) has finally lost all control and refuses to do anything! :mad: I have tried replacing the mouse, cleaning the mouse plug and port, but to no avail. I think it's unlikely to be some sort of virus as the only contact this machine has with the outside world is the occasional transfer of files in and out on cd. I have a horrible feeling that I forgot to back up after the last batch of VAT returns so would really like to be able to at least temporarily fix it for long enough to copy my files onto cd! Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Louise

stan747

you could try plugging the hard drive into another computer to try and extract the data, just make sure the other computer has a fully up to date anti virus, just in case.
alternatively, get an inexpensive external caddy to drop the hard drive into, that makes it more portable.

albertross_2

tried a usb mouse?

try safe mode f8 at boot

devizes18193

do you check file's that go on the pc for viruses

Aspal

devizes18193 wrote: »

do you check file's that go on the pc for viruses

I don't specifically virus check the files I transfer over, but I only ever transfer to/from my other machine, which runs AVG virus software daily, and has never had a problem. It's only very occasionally too.

Aspal

albertross wrote: »

tried a usb mouse?

try safe mode f8 at boot

didn't think a usb mouse would work on windows 98 as it wouldn't have the drivers - or am i wrong?

will give safe mode a try tho. Thanks

advent1122

I had this happen to me and it was definately the mouse.
I replaced it and it worked fine, you say you have already done this so maybe the mouse port is faulty.
I would try plugging a USB mouse in as advised and "hope" windows finds it ok.
After all you have nothing to lose by trying.

sweetpickle_2

I recently installed a USB mouse and a keyboard on our Windows 98 computer.

Just needed the Windows 98 disc to help with the drivers on one on them.

From memory it is easier if you don't remove the old mouse until the new one has been installed.

GreenNotM

Only replace (plug/unplug) the mouse with the PC turned off from the wall. Have you cleaned the rollers and ball - if not using an optical mouse...

As the problem happened when you was printing - do a safe boot to Dos mode http://support.microsoft.com/kb/180902 then delete the temp directory/folder
"deltree c:\temp" then recreate it. "md temp" from c:\
then "deltree c:\windows\temp" please only delete these folders if you are sure you have never saved files to them. may also be worthwhile using deltree to remove your recycle bin folder.

HTH

PS I think it need to be W98SE for pnp usb support not just W98 - but that maybe wrong - so long a go ...

aardvarkuk

GreenNotM wrote: »

PS I think it need to be W98SE for usb support not just W98 - but that maybe wrong - so long a go ...

Thats correct USB under win98se as win98 was useless really, you can still get drivers for usb hubs/stuff from http://www.usbman.com/ but its still a pain in the bum.