windows me has crashed twice in the last week (having never done so before). Will not reboot with boot disk, have to reinstall completely. Does not recognise second chance although it's running. Have just installed broadband from cable company(ntl). Could this have caused the crashes? Can anyone help?

always on connections are easy prey for hackers and trojans...install a firewall and when you are away for a long time switch off. otherwise i dont understand why broadband should crash your system.

With a DSL you need a firewall as hackers use scanners to find unprotected computers and now they have 24/7 to ruin your machine. Are you sure your boot-disk is OK, put it on a speaker and it could be damaged if you didn't use it recently. Make another in another computer and try again. Won't boot into safe mode by holding down the Ctrl key (or tapping F8 key) before starting until you get to the choice page? Run Symantec security check when running to see all the possibilities to get into your machine. All ports should be running in stealth mode and you should uncheck SSDPSRV in msconfig to block ports 1900 & 5000 used for Plug 'n Play and also used to hack you. Iain.

Iain,are you jumpin' ship from annoyances? you might know me better as "patyson". the only thing i can offer on this subject is that I believe a "Hardware" firewall is much more reliable and effective than a "Software" firewall.Unfortunately,I'll be stuck w/dial-up for quite some time...geography,'ya know.

hmmm, second chance with win-me , didn't think win-me with system restore was compatible with second chance.