I've seen McAfee go crazy before. Its solid with 98se, so there is another program confilcting. You don't have another virus scan going? Nortons? Or that stupid Chip-away bios based scanner? If you have chip-away, turn it off. Also, us msconfig to turn off stuff one by one, its a long slow process, but eventualy you will find out what program it conflicts with. Or, turn off all the boot programs and turn them on one by one. Ether way, make sure you do one at a time.