Mame PC FUBAR

[mpm32]

Hi,

So my PC in my Mame machine is messed up. It's running win 98 believe it or not. I build the machine and set it up in 2003 and it's been played at least once a week since then.

The kids turned it on today and got this error:



Did a little research and tried to comment out line 4 using c:\edit config.sys. I used REM_prior to that line. I tried to save but it told me it couldn't save the config.sys file. I exited and rebooted.

I now get - Type the name of the command interpreter and the C prompt.

I can't get anywhere from here, tried a couple of command prompts hit enter and I get the message. With my limited knowledge, I'm stuck and very bummed at the thought of starting over. I haven't kept up with MAME developments and it would be daunting to set it up again. I'm hoping it will be an easy fix. I've read that you can reinstall 98 without losing files.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[lilshawn]

abort, retry, fail... that's dos talk for "your hard drive is hooped".

you could probably reformat and reinstall, but if it's as old as you say, it's probably time for a new one. get yourself a new hard drive and start over.

believe it or not, it's likely all the solar activity in the last week has been playing havoc with EVERYTHING.

so far in the last week had 5 computers crash hard unexpectedly... 2 hard drives die and a server needing to be restarted twice (that literally doesn't need to be touched for months at a time)

http://spaceweather.com/

[mpm32]

Oh I hope not.

I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to start over.

[Wired203]

run a chkdsk and see if you can recover the bad clusters,  your drive is failing.  If you are able to recover with chkdsk you will need to clone it to a new hard drive before it fails completely.

[spoot]

run a chkdsk and see if you can recover the bad clusters,  your drive is failing.  If you are able to recover with chkdsk you will need to clone it to a new hard drive before it fails completely.

this

[mpm32]

How would I run chkdsk from where I'm at now? C:\chkdsk?

And what would I need to clone the HD? And I'm guessing I would need to find an old HD that would be compatible with the old compaq it will be coming out of?

[spoot]

How would I run chkdsk from where I'm at now? C:\chkdsk?

And what would I need to clone the HD? And I'm guessing I would need to find an old HD that would be compatible with the old compaq it will be coming out of?

clonezilla

What size hd was in there?  And probably IDE one I'm guessing.

[mpm32]

For sure it's an IDE drive. Not sure how big but it can't be bigger than a 40 gig.

[yotsuya]

I dunno, at this point in time, I say pick up a cheap PC on Craigslist and just start over.

[mpm32]

Ugh,

There's so many questions to starting over;

What version of MAME? I don't even remember what version I was running.
Would my roms still work?
Would my old ipac still work?
What about front-ends? Are there easy ones that don't require a lot of programing?

Use the search feature on the forum you may say. And to that I say, I had a working machine, I was happy, I didn't need to upgrade anything, and now....:-(

What about the freezer trick? Freeze the HD and try to clone it?

[Vigo]

Your HD is probably still fine at this point, but you have a corrupted system file. Plug your HD from your mame cab into your main computer, and see if it reads as a secondary hard drive. If it does, you are in luck. Drag your mame data and frontend data over to a folder on your C: drive. Format and put windows 98 on a new hard drive and drag back to the same location. Keep a spare of your data on your main computer. If it continues to fail, get a new HD.

Although, as already pointed out, it might be time to UPGRAYEDD.

[lilshawn]

What about the freezer trick? Freeze the HD and try to clone it?

uhm, no. don't. yeah. i don't care what people have said, saying they've done it 100 times and it works all the time. Don't freeze your hard drive. You will lose more than you'd ever gain. unless you have a very specific failure caused by heat causing a drive failure...don't. Even had a guy tell me he froze his drive and it magically worked and has been reliable for 7 years, or some BS. Rolling my eyes so hard my retinas detached.

ANYWAYS...

downloading 10,000 mame games really doesn't take very long, especially with the speed things run these days. You can find... out there... complete sets all ready to go, just dump and run.

all your hardware will work with new versions of mame, in fact it will probably work more reliably with updated software and drivers.

the front end you use is your choice. you can stick with what you had, or go with something else. not a big deal.


you are acting like it's a great crisis and something that is impossible to fix.

Toss the old drive, (heck even the whole computer) get a new one (off craigslist for >30 bucks if you have to) and download what you need onto it. It's easier to do things like this than they were 15 years ago.

[Wired203]

Freezing does work but it's for certain circumstances only which is a failing main bearing which causes the spindle speed to slow down as it heats up which this isn't the case,  your drive is corrupt.  Hooking it up to your main PC and running a chkdsk and then copying everything over as suggested earlier would be the easiest option for someone that doesn't have in depth pc skills.  If your main PC doesn't have IDE which newer ones don't you can get a ide to usb adapter to connect it.

[mpm32]

So, I got a working PC to use in my Mame machine. And I am going to use Hyperspin. I want to set everything up on one PC, on an external drive and then move it to the Mame PC.

I found this guide (is there a better one?);
https://gameroomsolutions.com/setup-hyperspin-mame-hyperlaunch-full-guide/

I am concerned things won't work with the drive names being different. What would be the best way to do this?

[mpm32]

Oh and do I need Rocketlauncher? I'm only going to be using Mame.

Thanks!

[mpm32]

Changed my mind, I'm going to use MaLa following the guide here;

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,83570.0.html