Constant reinstallation of Windows Me

[therealwiggy]

I am repairing a machine that got fried by a lightning strike - new power supply, motherboard, processor. It now boots, but everytime it boots it tries to reinstall Windows Me. Even if I allow it to complete the reinstallation, it starts again upon the next reboot. I can't find anything wrong in WIN.INI, but maybe I'm missing something. Any ideas, please?

 

[Liquidlen]

If you are saying tht the installation is occuring even without you placing the Windows CD in. I would suspect some files/sectors were fried on th HDD also. You might want to run Scandisk/ Chkdisk.
A reformat and re-install might be in order.

 

[therealwiggy]

Thanks for that. Scandisk reports no errors. I don't really want to do a reformat. Any other ideas?

 

[Liquidlen]

Well windows me has system restore!
Or reload Windows using the disk.
I honestly have never heard of a case like this,but that doesn't mean much!
It is as though Windows installer doen't think it has comepleted.
Whatever you try do a backup of your data.
Let us know how you do!

 

[therealwiggy]

The owner's disabled System Restore! I'll have to try to find the CD. He's probably lost it...

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Once you have it up and running, click Start/Run and type in regedit and click OK.
Click on Edit/Find and type in RunOnce and click on Find next.
When found, check the entries in the right panel. Remove anything that smells of reboot/reinstall or looks like start/restart, etc. by right-clicking the entry and select Delete.
In the left panel, also check the keys Run, and RunOnceEx if there.
After checking these keys, press the F3 key to find more Run keys.
Ignore runonce.exe

Also check your C:\autoexec.bat (using Notepad) for an entry that wants to do an install of something.

When in doubt about any of the above, report the found Regedit keys and/or autoexec entries first.

 

[therealwiggy]

Brilliant - Goback was in the registry (even though it had been uninstalled) as a Run entry; I removed it and all is well. Thanks a million for your help.