Hi CRT

I have not suffered the nature of the problem you are discussing here, but I have had to reformat my hdd several times through my own neglect.

By neglect I mean d/l something that has corrupted the OS or by messing with the registery and deleting something I wasn't supposed to. In both instances mentioned I had to reformat and reinstall the OS. It is a pita on this machine.

One thing I have noticed on this machine is that when the hdd gets down to 20% free space left it starts slowing down big time. I have learned through research and googling that windows based systems need 15% free hdd space to function.

But as mentioned by LOTR and ukbobboy01 those are the best steps to keeping your machine and operating system healthy.