computer crashes

my computer crashed for about the 7th or 8th time this year. It always starts with me being only able to boot to the safe mode, from which I can't access my backup files (on an external hard drive). I get the follwing error messages: "An exception 06 has occurred at 0028: 00000017 in Vxd. This was called from 0028: CO23AC79" in VxD. Also: "Invalid Vxd dynamic link call from Win32 (01) + 00000714 to device 0009 servici. Windows config is invalid". I tried using winsafe but was unable to restore from there. I reinstalled win 98 (twice) but no luck. Had to completely restore and THEN use my backup. Am mightly fatigued from this repeated failure. Any suggestions on how, where I could backup so I can easily restore. Or better yet, any ideas on how to prevent the problem from recurring? It seems to have crashed the last two times when I downloaded windows media player 9. My computer is a pent 3, 256 mb ram, compaq 5700.
Thanks,
Jim

 

My first thought is Windows 98.

 

Da Chicken,
are you saying there are major issues with windows 98?

 

Take a look at http://aumha.org/win4/a/shutdown.htm

 

Wow. I was just speaking from personal experience. Didn't know it was so well documented!