Installation Problem

[Les1451]

A friend of mine has been having problems with her Windows ME system for some time. I finally persuaded her to dump it and I fitted a new hard drive, partitioned and formatted it and installed Windows 98 SE. I refitted her old HD as slave so she could copy over any data she wanted to keep.
Everything went fine until I came to install her NTL broadband account and was asked for PID or PIN number :
'Where's your welcome letter from NTL ?' , I asked
'I dunno' , came the reply
'Didn't you write it down somewhere ?' , I pleaded
'Errrmm....no !'
'Oh **** !' , I thought....

So you see my problem ?
Is there any way I could find her number on the old hard drive now fitted as slave ?
I know it must be in the registry somewhere and I know the names of the registry files but how do I read them ?
Can I load them into regedit from Win98 ?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

[Aragorn]

Hi and :welcome:

Is she using USB or Ethernet to connect to NTL.

If it's Ethernet you should need to touch the NTL disks as the MAC address will not have changed. Just tell IE's connection wizard that you're on a LAN.

If it's USB then you probably do need the disks. If so, your best bet is probably getting a PM from one of the NTL techies on here to check her account.

IIRC regedit can open another registry ('Load Hive') but I suspect you may have problems loading an ME registry in the 98SE regedit! I would also 'hope' the PIN is encypted in the registry!!

HTH

[Les1451]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
Yes she has a USB connection to her modem.
I agree with you that the PIN No. would probably be encrypted anyway but I'm kind of clutching at straws at this point.
Guess I'll wait a little longer, see if anybody else can help, thanks again.

[ian@huth]

Hi Les and :welcome:

Is the broadband service provided through cable modem or STB?

If its via a cable modem you should not need to install anything other than the USB drivers although I would recommend ethernet for connection.

Not too sure about STB connections if thats what you have but would have thought that just wiping the hard drive and reinstalling would still only need the USB drivers loading.

Edit. Type winipcfg in the run menu and see what IP address it gives. Also just try browsing to check as you may already be connected.

[Saneboy13]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
Yes she has a USB connection to her modem.
I agree with you that the PIN No. would probably be encrypted anyway but I'm kind of clutching at straws at this point.
Guess I'll wait a little longer, see if anybody else can help, thanks again.No need for the PIN, as the Modem is already registered on the system. You only need to reload the drivers for USB and that's all there is to it.

Sorry, my timimng for replies always stank;)

[Les1451]

I did manage to get the modem drivers installed but when I run Internet Explorer it goes to MSN set up which in turn runs the NTL set up which asks me for the pin number again.

I'm at home at the moment and I've just phoned the person who owns the problem computer but she's not there, so I haven't been able to try winipcfg.

Is there any way I can just open a browser window without it running MSN set up ?

[Aragorn]

In Control Panel you should have an 'Internet Options' applet. This should allow you to set the home page to www.ntlworld.com (or something better) and that should aprove whether she has a connection. Alternatively, in the 'Run' command box on 'Start' type "http://www.bbc.co.uk" (no quotes!) and that should bring up a browser.

If she gets the 'Internet connection' wizard, just tell it you are already on a LAN.

HTH

[Les1451]

Thanks for that, I'm going round there later today so I'll have another bash at it taking all your suggestions with me.
You've all been very helpful, thanks again.
I'll let you know tomorrow (or if I'm successful maybe even sooner) how I get on.

[Les1451]

Success !
I took my NTL CD with me and ran Broadband Medic from it.
That seemed to finalise the set up. I typed an address into the Run command box (good tip Araqorn) and away it went.
I've since installed Mozilla browser and e-mail, set home page and bookmarks and all seems fine.
Thanks everybody for all your help !