Desperately Need Help!!

[Terri Bevins]

Ok I'm new to this forum and I have a feeling that I'm going to look stupid but here goes nothing. I have a HP 6630 that I've had for about a year now. I'm starting to run into problems and can't seem to find out what is causing them or how to correct it. I can be in the middle of something and I will get the blue screen that says "Windows has made an error...press any key to restart". Once this is done I've lost my active desktop and most of my programs are gone. Then there are times that I will get an "illegal operation" notice and it will shut down again. I've tried defragging, cleaning out my cookies and history. I've done the ctrl+alt+delete and closed down every program that has popped up and then do the defrag. Nothing seems to work.

I tried to do the recovery disk but the computer just freezes up. So if anyone out there could PLEASE help me with this I would great appreciate it.

[Kevin Tailor]

Here are a few suggestions,
if a system file is corrupt, and if you are usign windows 98, you can go into the 'System File Checker' program and see if and of your system files are corrupt. Here is how:
1) go to the start menu, select 'run'
2) type in sfc and click ok
A utility will come up that will allow you to scan for altered/damaged system files.

Another thing you may want to try is typing 'msconfig' in the 'run' dialog, select the startup tab. There will be a list of programs, programs that have a checkmark beside them are loaded up evry time you start up your computer. Essential programs that you should leave check are explorer.exe, systray.exe, scanregw.exe, hpsysdrv.exe, mmkbd.exe (multimedia keyboard drivers), Vshwin32.exe (vshield). The rest of the boxes, if they appear unnecessary, can be unchecked. If you find that your computer is more stable without these progams that are unchecked, there is a chance that a program in the startup is causing you a problem, so you can go back in and indivdually recheck each program.

A number of other options remain such as updatign/reinstallign system drivers...
Hope this helped.

[Terri Bevins]

Kevin......one question before I start this;

I use a cable modem for my internet....do I need to turn it off while preforming these functions?