I gather you don't have a recent backup or partition image of your system to restore to.
Not knowing just what you have to work with (Toshiba Restore CD(s) or full O/S CD) and how your machine has been set up........
It sounds like a registry key or possibly explorer.exe itself may have been somewhat compromised. Explorer is one of the core components of the Windows platform kernel. If it goes, not a lot else will work.
Three seperate suggestions:
1.
Start your system in
RAW DOS. When you power on the system, at the POST screen, (Power On Self Test, usually the second screen you see) hold down the Ctrl key. You have to be quick. You should get the MS Startup Menu. Choose
Command Prompt Only.
If the system doesn't finish the boot from here, the drive or some files are corrupted and you'll need to use a floppy
boot disk.
* = See note below regarding the
boot disk.
Once you get the machine booted to the command prompt, if you're at A:\ because you used a floppy boot disk, type in;
c:
and hit Enter.
Then type in; (Hit the Enter key after each command)
cd c:\windows\sysbckup
dir/a rb*.cab
Is there a file with a date which preceeds the problem occurring?
If there is, you can try restoring the registry to that date. There will be four files replaced with backup copies from the date you pick. System.dat, user.dat (these two make up the registry itself), win.ini (Windows as you have it configured), and system.ini (the "controls" for your Windows environment).
If no main files have been removed/corrupted and the problem is within one of these four elements, your problem should be corrected. You will however, have to reinstall any software and maybe some windows updates which were added after the date of the RBXXX.CAB file you picked as this action replaces the registry with an older one.
To perform the above, type in;
c:\windows\command\scanreg/restore
and hit Enter. Pick the appropriate file based upon the restore date you need. Follow the prompts, and when completed, reboot your machine.
2.
If Windows will boot and run, you could try to run SFC (System File Checker) to scan for corrupted files, or extract and replace the c:\windows\explorer.exe file.
Start, Run, type in sfc.
Follow the prompts. Note: If you choose to let it check for all files on it's own without direction from you, read
these SFC considerations.
3.
You could try a reinstall of the O/S on top of itself. ie;
NO format, just reinstall to C:\WINDOWS. (Not C:\WINDOWS.000 which is where it will want to go, you just redirect it at this point.) This will retain programs, settings, etc.
For this you will need a 98
boot disk, and the O/S CD along with the
Product Key. Boot the machine using the boot disk. Choose CDROM support. Watch for the
device letter assigned to the CDROM near the end of the boot. It will probably be E: or F: unless you have several partitions, or more than one hard disk. Put the O/S CD in the CDROM drive. Give it a few seconds to spin up and gather the data. Type in;
x:\setup (where X is the device letter assigned by the boot floppy)
and setup should start. Ensure you redirect the install to C:\WINDOWS,
NOT C:\WINDOWS.000.
Please post back with any questions and results of anything here you've tried. You won't have to wait so long for a reply this time. ;>}
* =
Boot disk. Download this file to somewhere convenient (Desktop?).
Do not just copy this file to a floppy. Place a floppy disk in your A: drive. Click on the downloaded file to
run it. Running this file will format the floppy, ensure it's error free, and create the boot disk on your floppy. You can then boot with it.
