Presario 5009SR Win ME cant get into bios to check hard dr..

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq (More info?)

I keep getting different kinds of blue screens, lockups, hangings.
Restored to an older date, didn't help. Uninstalled anything I had
installed, ran virus, spyware check & all of that. Ran scan disk & had
tons of errors that it said it fixed. Tried to run defrag & system
kept locking up. I tried various windows troubleshooting tests but it
keeps coming back as "no problems found.

I tried to enter bios to do the IDE DPS self test to see if my hard
drive is failing, but the red "compaq" sign doesn't come up so I can
enter the f10 key, it just directly loads Win Me? Am I doing something
wrong?
Would re-formatting my hard drive fix any of this?
I have the recovery cd but no quick restore cd.

Any help would be woooooooonderful...

L&D