thanks Mart,

I found the Me installation disk and ran scan disk in MS Dos mode a number
of times and about 30 problems were fixed, the computer is running,
everything is working. After the fourth time at the end there was a message
reading, "the drive has some long file name errors that can be fixed by
running scan disk in windows". When i try to do that scandisk restarts many
times and a message appears saying, " Scandisk has restarted 10 times because
windows or another program is writing to it, quitting running some programs
may enable Scan disk to fininsh sooner."

So I have tried to uninstal some programs but that has not helped scandisk.
and the service pack for IE6 still won't instal.

Any further advice?

Dean.

"Mart" wrote:

Hmm... Perhaps a clue might be in your statement :-

... Scan disk freezes just
before completing.

You *may* have the onset of a failing HDD (main hard drive) - which could
explain your report that "there is an error accessing the registry, and the
system information files claim they are corrupt and the page is blank."

Depending on how important your personal files are to you, you may wish to
consider professional assistance to re-claim those file before they become
unrecoverable.

However, if you are prepared to 'have a go' yourself to see if you can fix
you PC, then you should try booting from your WinMe (floppy) Startup Disk
(if you have one. If not, come back and someone should be able to help) and
running Scandisk in Real Mode DOS as follows :-

Boot, using your WinMe Startup (floppy) Disk and select 'With CD-ROM
Support' then at the A:\ prompt, type "scandisk c:" (no quotes and note
there is a colon after the letter c) then press Return.

Follow the screen prompts - and for the first time at least, (unless you are
happy that either the disk is OK, or you can sacrifice your data) tell it
NOT to do a Surface Scan. See what it reports and keep a check on its
progress.

If it reports major problems, copy your important data to another drive (or
media) before attempting to write to (surface scan) the disk.

Don't forget to remove the floppy disk BEFORE you tell the machine to
reboot.

Worry about the IE 6 Service pack later.

Good luck

Mart



"Dean" wrote in message
...
Hello, I have a windows Me and I went to the microsoft updates site and it
suggested I download IE6 service pack, after downloading it will not fully
instal and the control panel is blank and the help menu will not work, it
claims there is an error accessing the registry, and the system
information
files claim they are corrupt and the page is blank. Scan disk freezes just
before completing.

How doI fully instal the service pack? or is there something else I need
to
do?

any help would be appreciated.