Just referred over by Buckeye Sam, who was evaluating my problem for malware. After multiple exchanges, he des not think it is malware.
The computer is very slow on startup and opening programs, Windows Explorer does not recognize my internal dvd rom or zip drive but does find an external cd r/w and internal floppy. IE previously would not start due to errors but as a result of some work, it now starts.
Buckeye Sam looked at multiple HJT logs and had me run several malware programs and antivirus scans. I also reinstalled W98SE and from the control panel (add/remove) did the repair on IE 6 SP1. I have disabled some of the malware programs to see if this would speed things up--no help. I have McAffee VS and Firewall running. More than 75% of my hard disk is free.
Any thoughts greatly appreciated.