Problem accessing certain web sites

Two web sites which we use have become inaccessible in the past month or so. One is for the Hewlett-Packard Co, www.hp.com, and the other is for the Vanguard group, www.vanguard.com. All other web sites connect well.
Our system is a Dell, Windows 98SE, IE 6, OE 6, dial-up connection.
Managed to contact both companies via email or phone for tech help. Each insisted problem is not with them but with us, even though we have no difficulty with other sites. They provided long lists of procedures to go through to "fix" our computer.
Could this be correct, that only certain sites are inaccessible and that the problem is internal here? What actions would you suggest?
Thank you. ALK

 

More than likely the problem is on your end. Check in your windows folder for a file named hosts (it has no extension). Open it in Notepad and if there are any entries in it that refer to these two websites, delete them. Then see if the web pages will work. You might consider deleting everything in the hosts file. If there are any pages listed in the hosts file and if the numerical address for the any of them should happen to change, you'll get a page not found for that particular web page.

If that isn't the problem, try typing the following address in your address bar. Can you get to HP if you use it?

192.6.234.8

Try this one for vanguard.com

192.175.173.71

 

Problem contacting certain web sites

Thank you for your help.
Tried the two numbers you suggested. Both brought me to one of those messages that we are unable to open, suggest look it up and try again.
then went to Windows folder. On my machine there is no subfolder labelled Hosts. Went through entire folder (1800+ items) and found none. Tried the find method on my start menu. Same result.
There were two files labelled hosts. Opened first with notepad. Empty.
Opened second: This produced the following:
# Copyright (c) 1998 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP stack for Windows98
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost

Sorry to be so much trouble, but I do not know where to go from here.
Thanks, ALK