Just not all sure where to start or post this so please forgive me if this not the correct place.

My PC using ME after startup looks like it is in the safe mode but its not. Folders such as documents and pictures CAN be opened but at greatly reduced quality in appearance. There are numerous error messages and the "D" drive is not always displayed in "My Computer". Even when it is displyed it does not read disks properly and says they are empty and that includes the restore disk and yet will read some parts of some disks.

Just occasionaly it will read the restore disk but say it is not the correct configuration and so cannot be used on that PC! The "E" drive is never displayed now and I cannot connect to internet as AOL not recognised or displays error messages.

All of this appeared to start after a visit from my son who downloaded some long overdue MS updates. After the problem commenced I checked out the updates with my laptop and read about one update that itself created errors caused some PCs to crash. I tried to remove any traces of that update but not sure if I was successful or even if this was the problem in the first place as that particular update had been corrected by later ones.

HELP........please.

One possibility is to try a System Restore to a date prior to any of these issues.


start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore

[Thanks Jephree

I did try to do that but there were no restore points available before the current date each time I tried even though I know that I had created several such points.

I feel if I can just get the system to read the CD Rom properly then I might be able to use the PC restore disk.

I tried out of frustration to load XP (even though the PC is running on ME) from a disk and it (the D rive) read this ok and even started to load quite a bit of the programme before discovering several missing files and cautioned against continuing unless one was an expert. You will have guessed I am NOT!

Any other suggestions gratefully accepted.

In order to upgrade to XP you would need a retail disk with a distinct Product Key.

To restore your ME you need to follow the instructions from the computer manufacturer.

What is the exact make and model of the computer?

My PC is an Evesham with an AMD Athlon processor but not sure how to describe exact model as it doesn't appear to idenify it beyond that.

The only disk fo ME that I have is what Evesham called the Rescue Disk which has 4 restore options including the ultimate reformatting but as I mentioned initially the D drive will not read it all most of the time or when it does it it goes into a strnge menu which has nothing to do with restoring files etc. A friend is sending me a copy of ME on a separated dik just to see if that will work.

Another point not mentioned so far is that when I run Scandisk , it eventually gives up with a message along the lines of failed after 10 attempts as some programme is writing to the disk.

http://www.evesham.com/products/inde...8-A6963E27248F

Perhaps you could ID your computer from these choices.

Clean installing with a ME disk should clear the computer unless your hard drive is failing.

You will need your Product Key. This will be an OEM Key and thus may not work with a retail ME CD. If you don't know it and can still boot into Safe Mode I see these suggestions for ME:

find install key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion
ProductKey

or

Open Notepad and copy this exactly as you see it here.

@echo off
start /w regedit /e key.txt HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion
type key.txt|find "ProductKey">mykey.txt
del key.txt


Save it on your desktop as key.bat
close notepad and doubleclick key.bat
It will put a text file on desktop named mykey.txt with your key in it.

Also you can open system.dat in Wordpad and use the search function to look for ProductKey
system.dat is in the windows folder.

Hope you don't mind me nipping in here, Jephree, but my thinking is that it may be possible to do a non-destructive re-installation (of ME) by going to C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS and double clicking on the SETUP.EXE file. It's not ideal, but I've done it in the past.

As for the "safe mode" appearance, Starbear, could it be that the screen resolution is set to 640x480? If so, you should be able to set it to what you want by right clicking on an empty part of the desktop and going from there (sorry - I'd give fuller instructions, but this page seems to refresh every time I leave it).

Regarding the failure to recognise the recovery CD, has the BIOS been updated? I had to upgrade one of my machines to XP (even though I prefer ME) because of this. I updated the BIOS and then got the error message you're getting, that it wasn't the same machine the disc was made for.

Finally, I'd rather have all the updates, especially as support for ME is to end on (I think) July 11th, so you'll need to get them by then. It could be that you've done some damage by trying to remove them.

Hope that lot helps. If nothing else it should give you a few more things to think about.