Help...I messed up!!!!

[Smcvicar]

I think I goofed. And I have a feeling you guys are going to confirm that belief.

In a moment of stupidity I loaded Windows 97 Professional on my VT2. I just wanted Microsoft Word and maybe Excel. After I installed it the Toaster took a while to shut down. And yesterday I went to boot the system up and it won't start. It goes through the whole start up and actually gets to the desktop before it restarts itself. I tried uninstall the software but it keeps re-booting itself.

Is there any way I can fix this incredibly stupid blunder?

 

[Jim Capillo]

FDISK, then reinstall W2K and finally, T2.....

Buy another machine to put all that other crap on and network them together if you must have communication between them.

 

[Smcvicar]

What is FDISK?

 

[johnq]

Scott:

Just in case you don't know about configuration backup programs, you should make sure you backup your boot drive (i.e., usually drive C) before you install any new software. There are two popular programs, Norton Utilities' Ghost and PowerQuest's DriveImage. I use DriveImage. These programs will boot your system, for example from a floppy, and you can then restore the last good configuration. I believe Windows XP has a builtin function that allows this also. Anyway, I am on my way to my studio right now to run DriveImage because I installed a new program last night and then the system developed the same symptoms you describe: it continually restarts.

john

 

[johnq]

Scott:

And a caution about Office97. It automatically installs a "Fast find" module that will run when ever you start the computer. It builds indexes of your files in the background and this is very likely to interfere with the performance of the VT2 (i.e., it is like drive indexing).

john

 

[Scott Bates]

First rule of video production on computers: Keep it pure! If you want to be able to produce video follow Jim's advice and keep EVERYTHING else on another system. There are some who will say they run all kinds of stuff (Jim's "junk") on their edit systems with no problem, but they're the exception, not the rule. If you only have one system, set it up so it's dual-boot so the non-video stuff never gets to the video side of the system.

 

[Jim Capillo]

Scott,

FDISK is a DOS level command that will erase the disk and ready it for a new OS install - leaving nothing behind.

 

[Smcvicar]

Just to give everyone an update...I think my problem has been fixed. A friend of mine suggested that I try F8 during bootup to troubleshoot and get into safe mode. I did that (you have to time it just right) and then uninstalled Windows 97 and restarted. And so far so good. My icons were real small on my desktop which I just enlarged while the VT2 modules were huge. I adjusted them down but they're still too big. I'll have to play around with that. It still seems that the Toaster may be in some kind of safe mode but everything works so I'll take it. I imagine somewhere down the line that I will have some problems but we'll see.

Thanks for all the adivice.

Scott