chuck,

Have you tried following the steps outlined in the links below. Instead of using the Wizard, try doing the steps separately:

How To Clean Unwanted Files From The Hard Drive

How To Shut Down Unnecessary Start Up Programs

What Do I Do When Scandisk and Defrag Won't Run In Win9.x/ME

IN addition, because some of your problems may be related to spyware, please download, install, update, then run the free spyware removal tools below:

Ad-Aware 6 Spyware Removal Tool

?Spybot Search & Destroy? Spyware Removal Tool

CWShredder Hijack Removal Tool


Hope this helps and let us know how it goes..

Grif