stevo36

thanks cluberti - i've removed the hard drive and given it to my friend to try to retreive some files off of it. i'll try your recomendation as soon as i get the drive back.

RJARRRPCGP, do you have any suggestions as to how to remove the junkware if i can't access the desktop? thanks

i use windows 2000 pro, and my friend recently gave me a wireless adaptor so i could piggyback on some random wireless signal in my area (this always works on my girlfriend's laptop). i installed it on an open slot in the back, and the light was flashing. i downloaded two different drivers from the mfr's website, but neither one got the adaptor working. the computer still worked regardless of several reboots. maybe i should mention that i had a flash drive plugged in when i shut down for the evening, and i left it in till i tried to boot up again. the next day, i tried to start up and everything looked ok till the end of my bootup, when i got the soft msn-blue generic screen with no icons or bars, but i could move the mouse around. i could right click to get the system processes, etc. but that's it. this is not the "blue screen of death", is it? i think i''ve gotten that (more of a royal blue) screen when i used to mess around on nt. i removed the adaptor and the flash drive to no success, and tried to hit esc or F8 or something at the next startups to get into the startup dialog to no avail. i also tried to use the W2K PRO disk to fix errors, but this did nothing, i still get the blue screen. any suggestions appreciated...