Hello,

I have had problems with my hard drive recently (freezing, not starting up, getting a blue screen that says I have errors and cannot write to the C Drive). And cannot access many thngs.

I'm using Windows ME

I have managed to do a full scan disk (which found errors on the hard drive), and have fully defragmented my hard drive.

My PC will now start up, but my when I press my start menu button, it presses down and stays down. nothing else happens.

I have lost all desk top icons except for:

Explorer (Does not start)
Firefox Browser (Starts but cannot connect to internet)
My Documents (Short cut is invalid)
My Computer (Opens but I get the message "Your current security settings prohibit running ActiveX controls on this page. As a result the page may not be displayed properly.")
Microsoft Outlook (Does not start)
My Network Places (Opens but but get the message "Your current security settings prohibit running ActiveX controls on this page. As a result the page may not be displayed properly.")
Recycle Bin (Opens but says action cancelled)

The only way to access documents is to start the computer in safe mode, I can then view the document details. However, I want to save some video footage to disk before I buy a new hard drive (if this is the prob) but cannot in safe mode.

Please please can you help as this video footage is very important to me?

Many thanks.
Andrew

Have you tried a System Restore?
Follow the instructions Here to get to safe mode, command prompt only and start the system restore by typing in the following command and hitting enter. Now choose a date before the problems began. HTH

edit c:\windows\system.ini

Hello,

Thanks for your help Bear, but I'm still not there.

I used my start-up disk and changed the shell as instructed. However, when I restarted my PC, I got the message "Error loading program.exe. You must re-install windows" The only option I get is "OK". I click on this and my PC shuts down.

Any more ideas?

Many thanks

Andrew

Make sure u edited the system.ini correctly.
It has to be progman.exe rather then program.exe as you have written in your error description

Cheers Bad Karma

Sorry, my mistake.

I have now changed it to pragman.exe. My computer started, I used the System Configujration Utility and selected 'Launch System Restore'. A new box came up with "System Restore" in the bar at the top, but it's just white in the rest of the box. Been like this for about half hour now and no change.

Any more suggestions?

Many thanks

Andrew

Seems as your system is seriously screwed, tuff luck there.
If the system restore won´t come up ok i think it´s time to try a reinstall.


Before trying that i would try to disable all programs/apps that autostart, then try system restore again.

Cheers.

Try to boot it up, then run that msconfig again and kick everything that autostarts. Maybe a little chance that it reacts then

Might also wanna use a small neat app called Taskbar+

Download: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

Worth a shot