WinME Reinstall: Seek Advice on advisability doing this

I am hoping Noel Paton, Koldbear or someone much more savvy that me can
provide some common sense and tech advice to prevant me from melting
down my old Compaq Presario 5000 desktop.

Backstory: My WinME operating system, as currently configured, is
continually melting into increasingly frustrating states of disrepair.
System Restore hasn't functions in forever; The sound system only works
if I delete the sound device and reboot the machine; I habitually boot
the machine to discover ScanDisk running, no mouse function and the
SafeMode display limited to 16 colors and 640x480 resolution. (I am
currently in this safemode state and can't figure out how to fight my
way out. If I do a normal bootup I have no mouse function.)

If you search this group for WinME posted by beezer000@gmail or
bdz000@hotmail, you'll see the whole woeful story.

I am wondering if a reinstall of WinME over the current WinME OS will
clean up the conflicts and errors in the registry or wherever that have
me teetering on the edge of extinction.

If necessary, I am willing to reinstall all of my applications and
updates, and the drivers for the firewire, usb and dsl ethernet cards
I installed.

What I want to maintain are the data files (be they MSExcel/word, jpg,
MP3, etc) on the internal harddrives.. These files are saved under 4
User names on 2 internal hard drives.

I have also read that reinstalling can make the data on the slave hard
drive inaccessable, and would hope to prevent this phenomenon. (The
primary drive is subdivided into C:LOCAL and D:SYSTEM_SAV. The slave
is E:HardDrive2. C:uses 23/27GB, D:uses 2.5/3GB, E:uses 47/80GB.)

I understand that IE6 (and OE6?) needs to be removed before doing such
a reinstall.

I see there have been several discussions of reinstall in the Group.
However, I cannot put together a clear picture of how to move forward
from these postings (each has its own tweaks), so I am throwing myself
on the mercy of the Group.

My questions (finally) a
## Does this make sense as a strategy for reaming out the gremlins in
my system?
## Is it possible to save the data files, especially on my E: drive?
## Are there levels of invasiveness I should work through in attempting
a fix?
## What is the best way to go about this?

I do have a WinME OEM CD-ROM. I also see the BASE2.CAB cabinet under
C:Windows/Options. And I once heard that Compaq supposedly stashed
some restoration functionality under D:SYSTEM_SAV.

Thanks for any advice, perspective or warnings.

Brian