missing file?

[bassman]

Hello gang. How has everyone been?
My son has encountered an interesting problem. I do not know all the details as he speaks 14 and I have not quite got the hang of that. Apparently he was moving some personal folders and files to another partition and shortly after that he experienced the following problem:
On startup, you can see everything on screen, all the text in POST and BIOS is there. Once the machine shifts gears to Windows the screen goes blank. Not black but a dull, dark purple glow. If I hit Ctrl/Alt/Del, the screen goes black and the POST screen comes back up. Sometimes during POST it will tell me there was a problem and that "\windows\system\vgaoem.fom" is missing. Try repairing with the original install disk.
I have tried this, problem is I no longer have a bootable XP disk and so I am unable to get to the repair.
Other things I have tried:
Using F8, I have tried Safe mode, VGA support, Safe mode with command prompt, last known good config. Actually I think I have tried every choice there.
I have tested this monitor on another comp and another monitor on this comp
Going into BIOS and setting CD as first boot device (sometimes this works with the disk I have).
I took out the AGP vid card and tried with the on-board vid.

System:
Ibuiltit
XP Pro
MSI bare bones
Sempron 233 (I think)
1 Gig RAM
two HDDs with a total of 5 partitions

Any help would be greatly appreciated :cool:

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Are you sure the file is .fom and not .fon?

If the latter, there is a solution at MS knowledge base but it still involves using an XP disk with the repair console.

[bassman]

Just checked, it shows it as fom. I've a feeling I will need to find a bootable XP disk :rolleyes:
EDIT, My mistake. Listened to 14 again. It is fon

[Fruss Tray Ted]

If you can slave the problem drive, you may be able to copy the file needed and place it manually into the windows/system32 folder

See here (windows/system32 folder) for the file itself (link) and suggestions.

[bassman]

Thanks FTT. I think slaving is going to be my quickest/simplest solution.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I just performed a search and in my XP pro, and the file resides in WINDOWS\Fonts so I suppose that is the location you'd need to put it.

Just noticed my link above wasn't done right. Try this one (http://www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/140984.html) instead.

[bassman]

OK, slaved this drive in another machine, went to what would be C: on this drive and can not find \system, or \system32 folder. Checked other partitions on this drive and not there. Not being able to speak 14 is the single biggest disability I have today :mad:
Would it work to just copy-paste the system folders from one drive to another, or are they proprietary in install?
Orrrrrr, can I do a "Repair" on another drive in a working comp?

[Sylvander]

I bet if you were to use the [FREE] EBCD "File Manager" [or whatever] to browse the files on the Windows partition you'd discover that the vgaoem.fon file is indeed quite happily residing in the WINDOWS\Fonts folder, and the real problem is that "something" is incorrectly specifying that it should be found in the Windows\System folder [and it of course cannot be found there].
If so, you'll probably need to complete XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option (http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897) to repair that [preferably with a slipstreamed XP CD (http://www.iol.ie/~krakowangus/bootupwininstall.htm)].

Oops, didn't see post #7.
I guess the non-destructive total rebuild is in order.

[bassman]

hehehee, Sylvander, after re-reading your post, I suppose a .fon file extension would make sense to be a Font. I am baffled as to why this happened and why it would prevent start up. I guess what I need to do is build a bootable XP Cd and slipstream it. ARRRGGGG!!!! No time for this today and can't leave it undone :rolleyes: