When I start up my PC I receive the following message:
" An exception 0D has occurred at 0028:000000FB in VxD --- This was called from 0028:C1646DEE in VxD CDVSD (01) + 0000DE. It may be possible to cotinue normally. On pressing the ENTER key the PC starts up as normal but I'm puzzled as to what is causing this.

Have you just downloaded the latest update from MS? I think that is what stuffed my WinME, also running on an HP. Anyway, after reading lots of helpful threads on this and other sites I made the following two changes - renamed windows\system\iosubsys\cd_read.vxd to cd_read.old AND windows\system\iosubsys\cdr4vsd.vxd to cdr4vsd.old. Both these files were mentioned in my 'blue screen crash' at startup. This seems to have worked a treat. Now, no blue screen and my CD drive has reappeared in Windows Explorer ... score. Not really sure what either of these files do, but I can always restore them unless my machine blows up ... which might not be a bad thing! Hope this helps.