in trying to run scandisk, several problems have come up. scandisk keeps restarting. i've closed as many programs as i can but in the taskmanager(ctrl,alt,del), there's 7 items open. i'm wondering which items are required there, in order for windows 98 to function. systray, explorer, loadqm are ones that are necessary aren't they?? any clarification will greatly help

Try booting into safe mode and running scandisk. Systray and explorer are necassary fr windows to function. CP

Crooked is dead on with the safe mode. To boot into safe mode, restart your computer, and just after the computer's logo goes away, and just bfore you get the Windows 98 logo (many comps will flash up "starting windows 95/8") tap the f8 button. That will get you to the boot menu. Choose Safe Mode, and when there run the scandisk, and while you are at it, defrag it, too. When they are done, reboot and it will default back to a normal boot. Running in safe mode does the same thing as stopiing all the programs with CTRL/ALT/DEL, only better. It doesn't start all those unneccessary programs, and it also doesn't start a bunch of services that normally run, but don't show up in the task manager. HTH -Dave C

Thanks a bunch. precisely what i was looking for.