Explorer Freeze on new install

My son's machine was having a problem with windows not loading completely upon startup, a blue screen would flick on so fast that I couldnt read it then the machine would restart itself. I went ahead and did a reformat and clean install since there was a bunch of garbage on the HD he did'nt need anyway.

The machine now boots up fine except that it freezes upon clicking "my computer" or at any attempts to "browse" any drives. The close program box then shows that explorer is not responding.

It's a P3 1g on an Abit VH6 running win 98 SE. I never had any problems with this set-up until then. I think the problem was originally caused by liberal use of the power/reset switches, I had similar probs on a different machine that stopped after instructing my wife on how to use the windows shut-down options.

I don't feel that this is software related since I can't even install any software besides the initial install of win98. If this is hardware related where do I start?

Any Ideas?

I'd start by doing a scandisk on the HD, then check the sticks of ram.

Maybe try and pull everything but the needed components also, (i.e. nic, sound card) and then try reinstalling them one by one. Sounds like the hard drive to me though. =/

good luck

I ran scandisk befor the reformat but I guess I'll do it again with a surface scan. The HD is pretty well used.

Thanks!