Hey krh, welcome to PCHF.

You can have as many web browsers as you want on your PC, however Internet Explorer is one that will always need to remain. It is part of Windows and Windows will not work without IE. You also need to be very careful with registry optimizers such as ashampoo, as the registry is a very very delicate part of Windows. It most likely found missing links of Internet Explorer and removed them making your problem even worse.

Also, where did you buy your PC from, as you are legally entitled to Windows Setup CD or at least some form of full recovery? Does your recovery patition allow you to do a full recovery? Are there any personal files you need to get off the HDD first?

hello madmonkey, i bought the pc from tesco! but there was no disks apart from works 8.5..oh and a tesco internet 1.
yes there is files id like to get off there 1st, although i backed most up a little while ago but NOT ALL OF THEM!...its driving me mad i jus dunno what to do?. it lets me get into the bios but thats it and i keep getting verifying dmi pool data.
thanks for getting back to me so quick!....oh and i cant remember if it allows me to do a full partition?!

Hi krh,

I know your probably frustrated at this point. And what I'm about to tell you won't help you feel any better. I think repairing Windows at this point is a lost cause, since you have Windows files missing, a bad registry and your initial attempt at recovery has not expanded your NTLDR, which leads me to think that either something went wrong during your recovery, or the recovery doesn't work. The only remaining option is to get the remaining data off your PC and then do a full restore. It's going to take some time, patience, and it's going to get messy lol, but I will stick with you and talk you through it step by step.

First of all, do you have another PC you can use for you to temporarily install your HDD into, possibly a friends PC? You'll also need to verify if your able to do a full format and restore, otherwise go back to Tesco and request for a setup or restore CD.

Yeah, this should have a "Quick Format" option as well as a "No Format" option which you said you tried last time.

OK, it's time to backup your data, so you will need to remove the HDD from your PC. You could attach it to your laptop but you would need to buy an external HDD Caddy for it to work. Otherwise, look for a PC. The PC needs to be relatively the same age as your PC. A new PC is likely to have SATA connections, whereas an older PC is likely to be IDE.

Have a look at these instructions on how to remove / install a HDD: Replacing a Hard Drive - Illustrated How to Replace a Hard Drive

When you install your HDD into another PC, the drive will appear as an additional drive in My Computer. You can then access your files from here. If you don't know where to look, let me know. Depending on what happended during the recovery you did the first time, you may find your files under a folder called "My Old Directory Structure".