Ok, this seems to have stumped most people I have sort help from.

I brought a refurbished computer from a company who put together these computers and sell them on ebay, the hard drive was about 2gbs and worked perfectly but I got greedy and decided that the 40gb hard drive sitting in a box in my desk would be better. I took out the small hard drive and threw it away.

Here is my problem:

The new hard drive works better than the small one because it has Windows ME installed rather than Windows 98. But I can not connect to the internet.

This is what happens. I type in my username, password and then I click the connection button. The modem makes the correct noises and I get a little computer icon in my task bar to tell me I am online.

But I can not view any web sites, receive or send emails, use any messenging programs like MSN or even ping web sites using MS Dos.

If I try to run a program like MSN Messenger then I get a pop up saying something about not being connected to the internet.

If I click the computer icon in my task bar it brings up a box which shows bytes sent and received. These are not normal, like after two minutes "online" the bytes received figure will be about 500 whilst the bytes sent will be nearing 4,000.

I have no firewall and nothing else running in the background, just Explorer. The modem was brand new but I still went out and brought another one and that did not make a blind bit of difference.

I took the hard drive and slipped it into an old machine I have and it reacted the same way on that machine.

I have the right drivers for the modem as they are on the CD I got with the modem.

I am completely stumped.

P.S. I was jus tinformed that the problem may be a corupt TCP/IP? They gave me the detaisl to fix htis is it is the case but is this the only thing that could make my connection act this way?

Its possible its a corrupt tcp/ip. Are you sure all the correct boxes are ticked etc? I went up from 98 to ME and had the same problem till I realised I had to tick the log onto network under the security tab when you right click properties on the connection. I'm pretty sure that option wasn't there on 98.

Ok. I removed the TCP/IP thing and then restarted my computer and added the TCP/IP thing and then restarted the computer again.

I then connected to the internet and it worked for about 6 minutes then it went dead again. Reconnecting just brought back the old problem again.

I find that when I want to connect to the internet that I have to reboot the computer every time just so I can snatch 6 minutes of internet time.

I will go home and make sure I have ticked the correct boxes.

I was told that upgrading would sort the problem.

On Saturday I intend to purchase Windows XP. I was also informed that if this does not work then a reformat certainly would.

This is just an update to my problem

I went and purchased Windows XP, installed it and now I am able to conenct to the internet for as long as I wish, whenever.

It looks like the people who have been telling me how rubbish ME is were right.

Thanks for the help folks.