please help. can i do an emergency startup / boot from orig set up disk. there is no startup boot disk available? thanks for help

Yes, switch on the PC and, as soon as the power is on, stick in your Windows ME CDROM. Push the CD tray back in. It should give you an option to boot from the CDROM.

If it doesn't, reboot the PC and, as soon as the power comes on, press F2 and Delete alternately every second. This will take you to the blue BIOS menu screen.

Go through the first couple of screens and you should find options either for the boot sequence (which should normally be "CDROM, C, A" or "A, CDROM, C") or options for the first boot device (which should be the floppy drive or A), the second boot device (which should be the CDROM) and the third boot device (which should be HDD or IDE0).

If there's an option for Try Other Boot Devices, set that to Yes as well.

Exit the BIOS, saving the changes. The PC will reboot and will then try to start up off of the Windows ME CDROM.

[B]thank-you for the info. i'll give it a try. DARN VIRUSES!!!!!! lol)