Hi I have a Dell Latitude using Windows ME, which my wife has been removing programmes from. We can't boot it at all - it gets through the BIOS boot, then a message appears: "Please wait while Setup updates your configuration files. This may take a few minutes" Then it just hangs there. The hard drive works for a while, but that's it. I have the ME CD, but only seem to be able to find options to format the disk. I can't find an option to boot it into Safe mode - the only options at the boot up are F2, which takes me into BIOS, and F12, which takes me into a boot menu - but only asks which device to boot from. Does anyone know any way to boot into Safe mode so that I can try the system restore program, straight from DOS? Alternatively, if the OS is buggered and needs a complete re-install, then is there any way to back up the data on the hard disk first - we have a huge amount of data on the computer that needs to be kept - will a pc technician be able to do something? HEEEELP!!!

hello have yoy tried rebooting to safe mode? hold down f2 or f5 on start up do system restore. and check out this link. m.e wont start http://computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/30687.html

How's it going Tom? Should be several ways out of this without losing your data. Pls post back to let me know how you're doing.

Have resolved the problem - by tapping F8 on a dell you go into the boot menu - from there I found safe mode, then disabled most of the start up software and bingo - I'm in. Thanks for your help folks. This PC has caused me all sorts of probs - I think I'm gonna switch to XP Pro!