Recycle Bin Format is Invalid

I have just re-installed Windows 98 SE. The machine was brought to me because over the last few months it had begun running slower and slower. It is a machine that was purchased October 1999. This is the second time that I am trying to re-install the operating system, the first time it just froze after being in use for 5 days and never properly restarted until a scanreg was run on it and it reverted to the previous version of the system registry.

The problem i am having now is that when I try to delete an icon from the desktop the message 'Recycle Bin Format is invalid. would you like to continue?' pops up and the machine freezes at that time, so I then have to press the power button in order to turn it off.

 

Sounds like it's infected; maybe has been for some time. Reinstalling will not clear some of these unless you first remove the partition and, after rebooting, make a new partition to format and re-install windows. That whole process is required to clean the system areas where critters can hide. So do that. You can do it all from a windows boot disk, or probably from booting the CD. Good luck.