: My PC starts up with System Configuration then Starting Windows 98...
: The next message states that HIMEN.SYS, DBLBUFF.SYS and IFSHLP.SYS are missing or corrupted. It then states "Type the name of the command interepter eg. C:\Windows\Command.com"

: HELP Please....
: what should I do??

I had put Windows 98 startup disk in drive A: & booted the comp. At prompt A:\SYS C:

This made coping of system files from startup disk to drive C, which was not accessible before. This solved problem of Type the name of command interpreter.

About missing or corrupt HIMEM.SYS, DBLBUFF & IFSHLP, pls follow suggestions of Shane, Jesse & Jan. Thanks.

Awesome post mate. I tried what you said and it worked a treat. Your a legend. No, seriously "your a legend!!!"

any suggestions?

any suggestions?

Microsoft Windows98 Startup Menu

1.Normal
2.Logged(\BOOTLOG.TXT)
3.Safe mode
4.Step-by-step confirmation
5.Command prompt only
6.Safe mode command prompt only

Enter a choice: (Note-I have tried all six of them)

The following file is missing or corrupt: C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
The following file is missing or corrupt: C:\WINDOWS\DBLBUFF.SYS
The following file is missing or corrupt: C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS.SYS

Type the name of the Command Interpreter(e.g.,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)
C>

I tried to find solutions on some of the forums (including this one) and found nothing acurate enough to help. I'm not sure if the instructions are clear enough or maybe perhaps this problem is different. I tried to use a boot disk and had no luck, I could not find enough information on 'exactly' how to boot my laptop with a bootdisk,heh. I tried these soultions:

Boot Win98 with bootdisk and type the following command from the A:\>prompt followed by ENTER: COPY A:\HIMEM.SYS C:WINDOWS (Noting the 2 spaces) and to proceed with the same with the other 2 files.

I also tried:
Boot to a C:\> prompt and type: DIRWIN.COM/S (Noting 2 spaces again)pressing Enter. (This did not list any file or directory).
SO I have no Idea if I have a directory or not.

Then I tried:
Boot, press and hold the 'CTRL' key to enter Boot Menu again,
selecting 'COMMAND PROMPT ONLY' and hitting Enter. At the C:\>prompt,
type 'SCANREG/RESTORE', hit Enter. A screen was suppose to appear to select a backup so that It could process and then reboot.

*Everything typed at C>_ (nothing)

Is there a site where I can download the HIMEN.SYS, DBLBUFF.SYS, IFSHLP.SYS, win.com, and msdos.sys files??? Or if someone has windows 98se, can you Please e-mail them to me. (Wes51586@hotmail.com)

edit msdos.sys it pulls up the blue page within dos that is the msdos dir but thee whole dir is blank I even scrolled down it for serveral hundred(s) of lines and still no text involved there.

I would like to try "Jan's" solution,

Part of what "Jan" says is as follows,

"1. Start your system with the Windows Emergency Disk. If you haven't got an emergency disk use any bootable system disk. You basically have to get to the C:-prompt. Only make sure that you include a path-statement that allows you to use the DOS-functions 'attrib' and 'edit'."

I have my Windows Emergency Startup Disk and I can get to a C:\ prompt, but,

I don't understand what it means to "include a path-statement that allows you to use the DOS functions 'attrib' and 'edit'.

Can anyone explain this to me.

>>>>> My posting got cut off, so here's the remaining part <<<<<

4. Now you can safely edit the msdos.sys file. (Type in: edit msdos.sys). Way down this file you will find a statement saying:

[Paths]
WinBootDir=0

This is the source of your misery. You just have to remove this text to revive your precious system. In my case there were some 50 hard-return inbetween the last 'real' statement and this malicious code. You can safely remove the hard-return as well. Only make sure that the resulting msdos.sys file is at least 1024 bytes in size.

5. Restore the system, hidden and read-only attributes of your edited msdos.sys file. (Type in: attrib msdos.sys +s +h +r). To see the result you can type: attrib msdos.sys, the reponse should be: A SHR MSDOS.SYS C:\MSDOS.SYS)

6. Now you can reboot your system and everything should be in perfect working order again. That is: when you didn't mess things up too much before trying this solution.

7. There is no imminent danger in the msdos.bad file (You remember, the old file I advised you to back-up, just in case). However, when this solution works you'll probably want to remove the msdos.bad file to prevent it from being restored, and causing the same trouble, ever again.

8. Unlike Jesse there was nothing wrong with my win.com file. Until now I have not been able to find the exact name of the virus or worm that caused this situation because prior to this situation I tested a few small programs and deleted them fortwith. I suspect that one of them was the cause of my problems. Nevertheless I will have my MacAfee antiviral software do a full heuristics scanning this night on my old and slow (500 MHz) system with a recent harddisk (app. 95 GB). That 'll cost some time, but perhaps it will help me pinpoint the offender. When I find the name of the virus I'll send in a new posting.

Thanks very much for your very helpfull site and special thanks to Shane and Jesse. Next month when I'm in Rome I will nominate them for beatification.

Thanks again, Jan

L.S.,

Regarding:

Windows98 failing to boot with messages:
missing or corrupted 0/dblbuff.sys
missing or corrupted 0/ifshelp.sys
missing or corrupted 0/himem.sys

Last night my Windows98 computer wouldn't boot in the usual way. Messages about Windows being unable to repair the registry and Windows unable to initialise a VFAT machine brought the system to a standstill. After rebooting with the Windows 98 emergency disk I noticed the messages above about missing or corrupted 0/dblbuff.sys, missing or corrupted 0/ifshelp.sys and missing or corrupted 0/himem.sys. This, and my girlfriend's independent connection to the internet, led me to this site where I found the tips of Shane (28th of may, 2003) and Jesse (27th of june, 2003) very helpfull.

Nevertheless I had a slightly different situation as Jesse described, so that it might be helpfull to add my experience. The advice of Shane might be a little too concise for less experienced users. In the end I only lost (a lot of) time. I succeeded in restoring my system in its full working order without any loss of data, although I already had engaged in some pretty risky rescue operations beforehand. I just have to promise myself to spend more time in a good and working backup-system for my precious data.

The heart of the problem was the msdos.sys file that was maliciously overwritten. The date-time stamp of the original file convinced me that the source of the problem was a virus (probably a macro-virus or a worm). This virus had its origins anywhere in the dungeons of KaZaA. This virus was not detected by my up-to-date (!) and permanently running (!) MacAfee antivirus-software. This could be caused by the fact that MacAfee has its heuristic scanning (for macro-viruses) turned off by default. You can turn this setting on in the (hidden) tools/advanced menu.

The solutions works as follows:

1. Start your system with the Windows Emergency Disk. If you haven't got an emergency disk use any bootable system disk. You basically have to get to the C:-prompt. Only make sure that you include a path-statement that allows you to use the DOS-functions 'attrib' and 'edit'.

2. Copy the file msdos.sys to msdos.bad. Just in case. We don't want more trouble than we've already got, don't we. (Type in: copy msdos.sys msdos.bad)

3. Remove the system, hidden and read-only attributes of the msdos.sys file. (Type in: attrib msdos.sys -s -h -r). To check the result you can type: attrib msdos.sys, the reponse should be: A MSDOS.SYS C:\MSDOS.SYS)

4. Now you can safely edit the msdos.sys file. (Type in: edit msdos.sys). Way down this file you will find a statement saying:

[Paths]
WinBootDir=0

Initially I had a system with two drives - one for programs, one for data. System refused to boot, with all of problems described by otheres above - corrupt FAT, scnadisk couldn't fix it, but boot woth floppy all data still there.

I have a clean hard drive with W98 SE on it. Replacing corrupted rives with this one, and everything boots up fine, no problem. Put in either of the corrupted drives, and the system refuses to boot , with dblbuff.sys, ifshlp.sys missing and system looking for windows.000 directory. Take out secondary hard drive, run with the same non corrupt hard drive, system boots normally.

The reason why I don't have them is because This was donated to us 2 years ago by my company.

regarding:
missing or corrupted 0/himem.sys
missing or corrupted 0/dblbuff.sys
missing or corrupted 0/ifshelp.sys

1) do that onto a floppy disk.
2) boot up using your boot disk floppy. Make sure the write protect tab is open on both disk.
3) at the "C" prompt: C:/> type in attrib -s -h and press enter.
This allows you to view and copy over the file.
4) here's a wierd thing. I got an "acess denied" when trying to copy the new file over the old.
You can rename the bad msdos.sys file howeve and then copy your new file on if this happens.
at the C:/> type ren msdos.sys msdos.bad then press enter
5) copy the files now at C:/> prompt type: copy a:\msdos.sys c:
press enter of course.
6)do the same again but with a different file name:
copy a:\win.com c:\windows
type in "Y" and press enter to over write the old file. Or to be safe you can rename the old file first. I say this because I am not 100% sure it was the infected file (and to limit liabilities form the posting ; )
rename is win.bad:
at c:/> prompt
cd windows press enter
ren win.com ren.bad
press enter.
Then do the above to copy the file.

This stopped it.

One other thing, delete the file msdos.bak it was infected to, cleaver SOB. Check all msdos.bak and other files so named as a backup with the command:
edit (filename)
Edit msdos.bak for example

The msdos.sys file(s) have that entry very low in the file that changes the bootup drive from C: to "0" (zero)
msdos.sys files are common and easier to replace than win.com files. But you can try to extract you win.com file from your CAb files as one user said. Service packs may give this a problem. (assuming a service pack updated the win.com file)

missing or corrupted 0/himem.sys
missing or corrupted 0/dblbuff.sys
missing or corrupted 0/ifshelp.sys

i think there is a virus going around and in order to get ur system working again, you have to edit your msdos.sys file in ur root diretory, at the end of the file (way at the bottom) there will be a statment saying : [Paths]
WinBootDir=0

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=0:\WINDOWS\DBLBUFF.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=0:\IFSHLP.SYS

The problem is the PATH. My PC is looking for these files on drive "0" (zero) instead of drvice C:\ where they really are.

During boot up these commands come up before the PC goes to autoexec.bat.
Does anyone know how I can get to these commands and change the drive letter from 0: (zero) to C:. I think that will clear up the problem.

My problem started while I was installing a 30 day trial version of MS-FRONTPAGE 2002 that I got from Microsoft. When the install wizard got to the point where it tells you that "to complete installation, you must restart your computer - yes or no" I said yes and then the PC would not reboot to windows.

To find Dblbuff.sys,ifshlp.sys & other .sys or .dll that are missing or corrupted you can use Microsoft CAB viewer to locate them on the Windows Installation CD. This utility comes free as part of the Microsoft Powertoys suite.

Download Powertoys & right click on Cabview.inf to istall.

Dblbuff.sys & ifshlp.sys can ce found in Win98_52.cab in the Win 98 folder. Right click to extract (browse to Windows folder).

To find Dblbuff.sys,ifshlp.sys & other .sys or .dll that are missing or corrupted you can use Microsoft CAB viewer to locate them on the Windows Installation CD. This utility comes free as part of the Microsoft Powertoys suite.

Download Powertoys & right click on Cabview.inf to istall.

Dblbuff.sys & ifshlp.sys can ce found in Win98_52.cab in the Win 98 folder. Right click to extract (browse to Windows folder).

Otherwise, take a look at Microsoft KBA article Q129605 to learn how to extract and install compressed files from the install CD.