Hello again Exo ! I am sorry, I thought I'd posted the BIOS info I had eventually found ... but I see I didn't .. apologies ! When I looked at the BIOS in the first instance, I found the Boot Device Priority, which I assume is what Boot Order is ..... and it listed only 2 items !!! as follows :
1st Boot Device 1st Floppy Drive
2nd " " SS LITE-ON CD RW
No mention of HD .. which I knew was very strange because I'd seen the link you gave and it showed a typical Boot Order on there ...... last night having read your last post, I did a System Restore back to the 7th March, the day following the installation of the new Modem. This went through fine. I then rebooted without any problem at all !
I then switched off, rebooted and went into the BIOS again, this time the Boot Device Priority was as follows ;
1st Boot Device 1st Floppy Drive
2nd " PM -HDS etc.
3rd " " SS LITE-ON CD RW
SO now I have three in the list ... but I'm not sure they are in the correct order.
I've looked at the Event Viewer this morning and there are no more red x's giving the adildr message. I have disabled the ADSL auto connect function, it's no hardship to click on connect !
This appears to have sorted out the starting up situation,and from reading everyone's input, is it likely that the Motherboard battery is the problem ? having read your comment about loss of settings, it would appear from the two Boot Order entries above that I had lost a very important setting.
It's very kind of you to consider my computer lady's charges, but they very reasonable and not really an issue. I would however rather try and sort things out myself, but as I have said I'm not too confident about the innards .. but perhaps I should twiddle a bit and then build up some confidence. Your comment about them being minor errors cheered me up no end Exo
I haven't touched the registry following the Eusing results, but as you think I should trust them, and if you are still of that opinion after reading this, I will venture forward and do that.
As you may have gathered the system started up this morning without any hitch or message at all
I 'd be grateful for your thoughts on the above. Many thanks.