Some questions about reformatting

I have an older PC with win ME. I was using avast, and ZA, but still found 3 virus when I ran my last scan. Now I can't run norton disk doctor or defrag, something is writing to the disk. I've tried starting in safe mode, using every method out there, and I never get the mode screen, it just starts windows every time no matter what I do, I've even cut power in the middle of a boot (risky I know) to try to force safe mode, but no luck.
I'm thinking of reformatting, there's a lot of junk on it and a lot of stuff in startup that I'd like to get rid of (it was the family PC, but the kids are gone now). My pc was an Everex, but most of it has been changed over the years, including the motherboard. It did not come with a disc, but rather a partition (D drive) with Drive Image SE installed. My questions are
1.- Do you think that the drive image se will still work with the new motherboard etc.?
2.- I have just about everything backed up to an external usb HD, but how do I save the bookmarks in my Firefox browser and add them to the new browser after I reformat?
I'm a little nervous about doing this (afraid I'll just make things worse), but if I can start fresh I think it'll run a lot better.

 

Hi,
1:If the image was made before the motherboard replacement (probably), it will fail. It is generally a bad idea to restore old images after you changed a lot of hardware, as this may result in a seriously unstable system.
2: In Firefox click Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks. The bookmarks manager appears. Now click file > export and save on your hard drive. To import them follow the same procedure, only click import instead of export.

 

Thanks for the reply erikske, glad to know how to back up the bookmarks. I played with this thing most of the day yesterday and it seems pretty stable now, I think I'll just start removing some programs one by one. There must be fifty items in my start up group, so I've been using selective startup for years, I'd like to remove them if I could, without having to remove every program, but I just haven't been able to figure out how to do that with many of them. Do most people use selective startup? I thought it may be why I can't boot into safe mode, but even when I select a normal startup (takes forever and resources drop extremely low) it still won't go into safe mode.
Thanks again for your help

 

Sometimes the best thing to do is reformat.

 

A lot of people (including me) use selective startup. There are a lot of programs out there that really like to put themselves in your system startup. This can be very annoying, especially if the program itself has no option to turn the autostart feature off.
Safe mode, however, is not affected by any of these programs. When you boot into safe mode, windows will only load what is absolutely necessary. All auto starting programs are ignored and most of your drivers are too (windows will use the default microsoft drivers if possible). This makes safe mode safe, or at least should make it safe

But as kelnav already said, a reformat really is the best option for a seriously messed up system.

 

If it was me.... If you have the disks, I would try a repair install. if nothing else this should get you into the safe mode boot then you can troubleshoot further, it may also clear up your problem all together, almost sounds like a virus in your MFT....
Anyhow by doing a repair install, you can save all your stuff installed on the computer along with your settings.
Not sure how old your system is but if your running ME then i am guessing it's kinda old, which limits a lot of the neat things you could try, but if you can you might try to create another partition, move the stuff to there, then reformat/reinstall the bad partition with ME on it.
To do a repair install insert your cd and reboot, somewhere along the setup when it gets to the blue screen it will tell you that there is already a version of windows installed and that running multiple OS from the same partition....
one of your options under that will be to press R to repair Windows, press R and when it is done it will boot back into Windows just the way you left it, or you should be able to boot into safe mode. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the reply, yeah I'd really like to do a repair rather than a reformat, but I don't have the disc, all I have is a disc image that was supplied on a partition on the hard drive, and as mentioned, I'm a little nervous about trying to use it since so much of my system has been changed.
I think I've got it pretty stable now, though it still won't start in safe mode. I have considered upgrading to XP, but my system is becoming so outdated that it would make more sense to just buy a new box with XP installed. Even a cheap one would be a step up from what I have, now if I can just find some spare money floatin' around.
Thanks for your help guys, I think I'll run it like this till I can afford a new one.