Restart problems & won't scan disc surface

I was asked to restrict my computer usage to our old Hewlett Packard Pavilion (with Windows 98), because I (let me quote)... "Spend all your freakin' time on that anime crap site". Man that's harsh. I miss our new lap top.
Any way
I had installed some CD Rom games on the computer for my younger sister & my niece. They never played most of them, so I uninstalled the ones they don't play. After that I have had problems with the computer restarting after it goes off. I have to try many times. Last time it took 25 tries before it would restart. It tries, but suddenly shuts down, or sometimes after several tries it starts trying to prompt me to insert the disc that will set the computer up. I don't even think we have that after all this time. I just reboot it again, and it will take me several tries to get it going.
I thought maybe some thing became corrupted, and that it's just causing some sort of "glitch" in the system. But...
The other thing is after this first happened I could not defrag or scan anything for several days. Eventually it let me do a basic file scan and defrag, but I still can not scan the surface of the disc. When I try to do a surface scan it goes only so far and then the whole computer freezes up. This means I end up rebooting, and I have already told you what thats like.
I am saving up for my own PC (forget the fact that I'm the only one working in this house, and therefore paid for that computer), but till then, I would like to keep this one running, so that I may spend ridiculous amounts of time on AO.
Can you help me? :worship:

1. does a blue screen come up when it shuts down and does it say 'crash dump'?
if so, you lost all ur info and have to re-install ur windows, and may i say GET XP! atleast offa torrent site!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raimann

1. does a blue screen come up when it shuts down and does it say 'crash dump'?
if so, you lost all ur info and have to re-install ur windows, and may i say GET XP! atleast offa torrent site!

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No it does not say that. But I'll check and see if I can find & up this to XP. This computer is pretty old. Well I am saving up for a new PC any way, so I guess this is just something I may have to put up with till then. Thanks for your help.