my Microsoft Security Essentials on the fritz

I've had several interesting problems occur, and I am not sure the events are entirely coincidental.

A couple weeks ago I did a restart on my computer and it came up saying that it couldn't read my hard drive. I restarted again with success and that even did not repeat.

1. Microsoft Security Essentials was working fine, but wasn't updating. It kept leaving me error codes. I tried a restart - didn't fix it.

2. I noticed that Windows Media Player wouldn't start... something about a wrong version number. A new install doesn't work, and I can't seem to uninstall.

3. I started doing some research and found that IExplorer is linked to it somehow. I normally use FF - so I tried to start IE. A temporary window would open and close immediately afterward. It took a while, but I finally found a fix to this last one.

I tried to uninstall MSE from the Control Panel. It wouldn't work. Keeps saying that the install files cannot be found on my computer. It tries to open an epp.msi file which apparently doesn't exist on the computer eihter

I tried another restart. Now MSE isn't running at all... a warning says I have no virus protection. The file is no longer present in the list of programs in Control Panel/Program Removal. Neither is it resident as a running program (Task Manager).

I tried to reinstall a new version of MSE - same problem as before - won't install.

I have done several virus scans... all come up clean.

I have downloaded various MSE removal tools, but none do the trick.

I followed advice about MS method of uninstalling. I even tried removing some registry keys, and found that the ones I am looking for do not exist. So I used yet another MS removal tool... but it didn't change anything.

Media Player still doesn't work. I have no virus protection... and suspect that I have a virus which disables and hides MSE.

Any suggestions?

Gary

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