Hello- Long time lurker, first time poster. I have a computer that my wife uses, and this time she's really done it!! When I turn the computer on, 1/2 the time it gives me the windows option screen (the one you get to by pushing f8) and the other half of the time, it brings me to the black screen right before the desktop, puts an hourglass in the middle of the screen and freezes!! I cant figure out for the life of me what the hell to do. Probably an easy fix, i'm not too much into the whole computer scene. Any responses would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance- Dylan

hello dont lisson to geezer he,s format first for any reason person.inexperianced people allway sujest reformat for every thing. try this link. m.e wont start http://computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/30687.html

Hi Dylan, We all started out as lurkers here :-) Would suggest you boot from a boot disk and try running "SCANREG /RESTORE" from the A:> prompt to see if you can restore the registry from a point where you know it worked ok. See if ME will start up in safe mode, and go through the help (startup troubleshooter) in the start menu. There's also a page below which you might want to take a look at as this lists common startup problems / fixes: http://www.aumha.org/kbshtdwn.htm http://computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/30687.html Hope this helps you out, Mark