Reformatting Trouble

[Noodle]

A lot of things have gone wrong with my computer. First of all, sometimes the PC just slowed up and sometimes made a noise which sounded like it was under a lot of strain, even when I do something simple, like click on Start. When this happens, I have to manually reset.
Secondly, after these slow-downs, the blue screen of death popped-up saying 'CANNOT WRITE TO DISK C:' (C: is my hard drive). I thought I could alter these things, by doing system recover, resetting the PC to how is was a few months ago. It failed.
After that, every time I turned on my PC, regardless of how it was shut-down, Scandisk came on. I let it run, and it found no errors. Twice. After that, my desktop comes on - but without the taskbar and icons, and a box appears saying it is 'Setting up my system - this may take a few minutes'. It takes 20. After THAT, my PC comes on, but still does that slow-down thing, and crashes a lot.

The only thing for it, I thought, was to reformat totally. I set it up, played a console game for an hour, and came back, only for it to say it had encountered an error to the tune of:
'System Recall (or whatever) has encountered an error. Either the disk is faulty or the CD Drive is malfunctioning.'

And that is where I am now. I am only here after spending an hour or so trying to get my PC on.

My System Information is as follows:
Windows ME
S3 ProSavage4 Video Card
AMD Duron

Please help me. I need my computer.

-Noodle

[brad]

Did you do a clean install of WinMe? (Boot with the disk and "format C:)
brad

[Noodle]

WinME was already installed on the computer.

[brad]

[Noodle]

[brad]

[Noodle]

[brad]

I'm really thinking you may have a Hard Drive going bad. I would be backing up all critical data, just in case.
If you want to try "fixing" Windows, then this is an easy way:

You need to boot into safe mode to do the following reinstall.
To boot into safe mode go to Start / Run / Type msconfig / Click on the "Advanced" button / Select the "Enable Startup Menu" option. Now reboot and select Safe Mode. Remember to go back to msconfig after you are all done and undo "Enable Startup Menu".

Follow these instructions and try reinstalling WinMe ontop of itself to replace what may be missing. To do a nondistuctive WinMe reinstall without losing data go to Safe Mode and then navigate to: C:Windows\options\cabs\setup.exe
Double click setup and windows will start reinstalling on top of itself.
See if this helps.
brad

[Noodle]

Aargh! I did what you said, but it said I needed more conventional memory. I was in safe mode, so there were no programs to close. And now my mouse isn't working, making navigation extremely difficult.

Help me please.

[brad]

Do you have a PS/2 mouse? (Plugs in)
If so, unplug it and turn off your computer. Now plug in the mouse and reboot. Windows should detect your mouse on startup.
How much memory is installed? Right Click the "My Computer" Icon and select "Properties".
I'm still thinking it's the Hard Drive.
brad