OE conundrum...and SP2

"new" system-old computer, only newly fired up. XP 2002 version. SP1. been sitting in a box for a while. anyway....
I can't get my OE to work. when I first fired this computer up and tried to get OE to open, it insisted on opening in WinOffice. now that I'm online, it opens normally, but send/recieve is dead/de-activated. no idea how to activate it. I have other email sites, so I'm not completely out of luck, but I like OE.
while I'm at it, I should probably install SP2...should know where it is, but my brain's in meltdown mode from too many failed attempts at downloading AVG from MG and then from Grisoft itself. keeps saying it can't connect to host. other downloads are fine, just AVG is a pain. and I like AVG.
btw, I'm an intermediate computer user but don't know alot about the internal workings of hardware and software, so I'll be confused if you tell me to reconfigure most things. better to assume I don't know all that much, 'cause I don't.

 

tools accounts, then the mail tab, is anything listed? More then likely not, which means you need to configure your outlook express with the information from your email provider.

 

you're right, nothing there. fooled around and figured how to do it, but had to email my server to acquire send and receive stuff. worked fine, then big mess, not sure what's wrong. bubble window comes up, windows-delayed write failed "Windows was unable to save all the data for the file C:\$Mft. the data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. please try to save this file elsewhere" then OE shut down. couldn't import mail, pop3 not responded for 60 secs (or however long it says) window came up. hope I didn't lose the mail on the server. what a pain this computer has been! anyway, it wasn't a network connection problem. still connected. so what's wrong? can I repair it? if so, how?
what the heck is file C:\$Mft? I realize it's on the C drive, but the rest is giberish to me. don't recall ever seeing that file before.
well, this computer isn't through with me yet. I've come close over the past 5 days of being through with it.