No 'solutions' I'm afraid but a couple of further pointers which might be
worth looking at :-

"How to Troubleshoot Windows Millennium Edition Startup Problems"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/273738/en-us

Virus has to be a (strong?) contender - as mentioned in the KB article.
Try F-Protect for DOS from http://www.f-prot.com/download/

BTW - May be worth throwing as much hardware off as you can (especially
USB), leaving minimal kit - Monitor, Keyboard and (preferably) serial or
ps/2 Mouse.

Also :-
"How to Start the System Restore Tool from a Command Prompt"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279736/en-us

But the fact that you haven't got any *recent* .CAB files (typically 5) - as
Mike has already pointed out - is a major worry, especially for the days
leading up to the day on which your PC went down.

..or should I just take the HDD to another computer
and back it up there first?

If you've got some serious (personal) data which you can't afford to lose,
then Yes!

Mart


"JNB" wrote in message
...
Sorry for the delay guys....i'm having to use someone elses
computer/connection so there is a delay between reading you comments and
trying/checking stuff and replying. Anyway...scandisk did run
automatically,
i've learned that when the system hangs and I have to use the power button
to
shut down that scandisk finishes alot faster if i start in Safe Mode.
Then I
do an orderly shutdown from Safe Mode and then it has always powered up
normally. However, now after scandisk finishes it goes to the grey screen
that I mentioned before and hangs...I cant do anything. I dont recall now
if
scandisk runs automatically anymore after i use the power button to
shutdown
from the hung state (I'll have to go back and try it) Also, one mystery
that
I can clear up is the reason there is a very recent .cab available from
scanreg /restore is that I after you guys turned me on to scanreg I
noticed
its "backup" option and used it to create the .cab. The other 4 that show
up
in the list now are several years old.
Is this still the right way to proceed? I'm deathly afraid I'll blow away
data etc if I try this and it doesnt work. For now though from DOS, I've
looked around on the C: drive and it looks like all is still intact and
the
HDD is OK. I havent tried saving to the memory stick yet but that will be
my
next step...or should I just take the HDD to another computer and back it
up
there first?