So I boot up my old Dell with Windows ME OS and get:

THE FOLLOWING FILE IS MISSING OR CORRUPTED: C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
THE FOLLOWING FILE IS MISSING OR CORRUPTED: C:\ WINDOWS\SYSTEMVMM32.VXD
TYPE THE NAME OF THE WINDOWS LOADER (E.G., C:\ WINDOWS\SYSTEMVMM32.VXD)

I come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to reformat the computer, BUT when I go to reinstall windows I get the following:

“SCANDISK ENCOUNTERED A DATA ERROR WHILE READING THE FAT ON DRIVE C.
THIS ERROR PREVENTS SCANDISK FROM FIXING THIS DRIVE”

And I can go no further. All I’m wanting to do is salvage some files on the hard drive, otherwise I could care less about the computer. What should/can I do to access my files!?
Any help or advice appreciated.
Thanks-

Install the drive in another PC or USB enclosure and see if the drive can be read.....

Or download a linux live cd and use an external storage device. A reasonably sized usb flash drive should cover it depending on the volume of files you need transferring.

ok, where's the best place to download a linux cd from, and which one? thanks-

See if a Knoppix cd spins up..

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirr...

Use one of the many Knoppix mirrors above.

Download the ISO and burn the image to a cd (using say Nero), get into the BIOS so the machine reads the cd first (as opposed to the hard drive, or whatever it's set to) and see if it boots off it.

Dell boxes are notoriously retarded regarding linux live cd's spinning up on them, but it's worth a shot, only costs you your time, disk and bandwidth and you might get lucky.

http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/k...

and that should give you an idea of what you're doing when you get there (despite the version difference).

"I come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to reformat the computer"

"All I’m wanting to do is salvage some files on the hard drive"

Reformatting is no way to salvage files...lol

Check the HD cable and make sure it's tightly connected and in good shape.

You got the scandisk error when you attempted a reinstallation. Does that mean you already reformatted or was this an over-the-top reinstall attempt?

It was an over-the-top reinstall attempt.

Viking- The Knoppix disk works like a charm! Thank you very much! I'm still learning how to move around with it, but can access most of the files then burn them to disk.

Excellent, I'm half surprised it spun up and half not. Knoppix still has excellent hardware support even if development has ground to a halt a bit on it. If that didn't work it was going to be Kanotix or Ubuntu, which has some special Dell boot parameters. All three distros are debian based.

Takes a bit of getting used to but, welcome to Linux. :)