My Gateway computer at home was performing really well until a couple weeks ago. Over the past couple weeks though, I would power on my computer, and Windows ME would freeze at a random point -- within a couple minutes of power-on. So sometimes it would lock up during the boot up process, and sometimes I've gotten as far as reading my email before everything locks hard. Anyway... the situation degraded enough to the point that the computer always locked up when I powered on the computer -- and thus couldn't start Windows (even in Safe Mode). Out came my handy-dandy Recovery CDs from Gateway to solve this situation. When I reinstalled Windows from the Gateway CD, I selected the option of erasing the C:\WINDOWS directory before reinstalling a fresh copy of the operating system. (I didn't care to wipe the entire hard drive -- I'm a little behind in moving stuff that I want to burn to CD.) After proceeding to re-install Win-ME over the next hour, my computer could be rebooted (by way of the Start button, mind you) as many times as I liked. ... Until I pressed the "Off" switch at night. Then, the next morning, the computer had forgotten how to load Windows without freezing on exactly the same schedule that it had before I reinstalled the operating system. As though I hadn't even reinstalled Windows ME at all. I've tried this process twice (just testing a hunch that it may have been one of my Windows Updates that flattened something that it shouldn't have touched ... turns out that I was wrong) with the same results. Reboot from the Start button? Sure thing. Full Scandisk the drive for any errors? Sure thing... and no errors at all. Press the "Power" button? Whoops.... I need advice. Has anyone else encountered this problem? Is my next logical step to wipe the drive clean before re-reinstalling Windows ME (assuming that it must be a file outside of C:\WINDOWS ... perhaps C:\_RESTORE or its brethren are messing me up?), or is there a fix that's been created that will magically solve all my problems? (Ah yes... Magic... that's what drives computers....) Ideas? Please? :-) Talk to you later....

try more ram. d/l belarc advisor for finding out type and goto crucial and check out right ram for your mother board

Might be hardware failure..