How boned am I?

Here's what I've got to deal with. 98fe, I didn't make one of those emergency disk (who needs them right) and now I've got problems. I wanted to switch network cards. I de-installed the one that was in the machine, rebooted, shut down, put in the new one, powered up, installed the software for it, rebooted then...

"windows found an error in your system files and restored a recent backup of the files to fix the problem. Press enter to restart your computer"

That's all I get. It's a continual loop. After every reboot it goes through the checklist and gives me the same thing. I even put the other network card in and still no relief. So. Am I boned or is there something I can do about this?


(note: reinstalling everything = boned)

[SteveI]

Try booting into safe mode, with neither card it there. Make sure device manager looks ok(no drivers for either). Boot normal with neither card, and see if you still get the error. If not, then try the new card again.

No can do. It won't let me get that far. The system powers up, the registry checker sees that the registry is bad, restores an old one then tells me to reboot. I don't get the chance to go into safe mode. I even tried forcing the issue by killing power before the registry checker problem hoping that on reboot I would have the safe mode option but no go.

[SteveI]

Wild... wild stab.
how about use a bootable floppy w/ chkdsk on it.... boot from it, and see if you have HDD issues, and try to fix it there?

Ok, I'll give it a shot.

[cloasters]

I'm told that it's better to install a NIC's driver before you install the NIC. It's worked fine that way and the orthodox way, too. Might be worth a try.