Alright Dan....now I think I'm in trouble and confused.

Bios Setup Utility

Boot

1st Boot Device [SM-ARTEC WRR522]
2nd Boot Device [1st Floppy Drive]
3rd Boot Device [PM-WDC WD400EB-00CPF0]

A device enclosed in parenthesis has been disabled in the corresponding type menu.
Does this mean that they're all disabled?
This is exactly what I found....haven't changed anything.

1st Boot Device [SM-ARTEC WRR522]
Secondary Master device, your optical drive

2nd Boot Device [1st Floppy Drive]

3rd Boot Device [PM-WDC WD400EB-00CPF0]
Primary Master device, a Western Digital 40 GB hard disk

A device enclosed in parenthesis has been disabled in the corresponding type menu.
Does this mean that they're all disabled?

Apparently. But it seems odd that the PM hard disk (3rd device) is disabled as a boot device, yet the machine boots. Is there a second hard disk in this machine?

Simply enable the 1st boot device. (CDROM) Arrow to it and hit Enter or Page Up or Page Down. (The keys for bios navigation and functions should be listed on every bios screen, usually down in one corner.)

I'LL Open the case just to see if there's another drive. Weird huh? Well I'm getting switched over to Fios on Friday, so if all goes well I'll be back here sometime during the weekend, letting you know how everything turned out, okay? You're a terrific guy, thanks for the patience, and the continuing help!!

Hi
i need to send my question but i don't know how

SAMAA,

Pick the appropriate forum with regards to your question (Hardware, Software, Operating System troubles, Networking, etc etc.

Then go to that forum, and click on NEW POST.

Dan, First let me appollogize for not getting back here sooner, it's been crazy....sorry!

Second Happy Holidays!! Hope your new year is healthy and wonderful!

Okay, now, on with the ongoing mystery....

I tried to do a repair installation, even made a new SP2 cd to use , but before I could do that I received this error message: The file cpqarray.sys is corrupted.

I then decided to try to reformat, and everything went well, all the way till the reboot.....then black screen and the safe mode again!!

Is this hopeless?? Thanks for your continued help....Lyn

cpqarray.sys is a (Microsoft) driver file for a Compaq RAID Array. The only component that might use this is your ARTEC optical drive (SCSI device) as your hard disk is an EIDE 40GB. (I have the exact same hard disk in this machine, which my XP Home is installed on.)

I then decided to try to reformat, and everything went well,

This was a "clean install"? If so, did you delete the partition then create a new one, or just format the existing partition?

Run a chkdsk c: /r on the drive, just to eliminate bad sectors being in the equation.