And yes. I have tried everything and everything I did was another step to the downward spiral it was on. (no important information was lost) Even attempted to format hard drive, only to have errors during the reinstallation of Windows 98 (uuh, i used a windows 98 key from a crack site because the old one was lost). It was installed but wouldn't boot properly due to errors during the last step of installation.
So, any suggestions you have are welcome.