Thanks for your info. I have considered that as a probable course of action. In fact, I have installed a fresh OS onto a different HDD for that machine, and all is well. However, there are some things I want to check on the previous installation (like what the dial-up settings were etc), and I only know how to find them on an "active" system. Also, when I copied the address book to the new system, it won't open - says something like "is not a valid address book" or similar. I was wondering if I might be able to open it in the "original" system, export the data, then transfer the exported data onto the new "clean" system. I have already recovered the e-mails and all the stuff from the "My Documents" folder - it's just the address book and dial-up settings I really am trying to get back now. Any further thoughts?