IMHO this has nothing to do with LW, it's almost definitely a memory thing. When the chip fails, your operating system doesn't necessarily know, and will still try to write to that part of the memory, causing page faults, etc. You probably compounded the problem by trying to reinstall Windows, as, although the memory is defective, the fact it's in the computer would make it believe there is memory there. End result? Computer falls over, temporary files and folders get corrupted, files become folders, and next thing you know your hard drive is a complete mess and all your software and operating systems are corrupted. BSOD!

I would leave the original hard drive alone, install the OS (after removing the knackered memory) on another drive temporarily, and try to recover whatever you can from the original. Then format and replace your original drive and reinstall everything again. A pain, but there you go - such is the way of 'puters!

Further to that, when everything is reinstalled, if you've got a spare drive put all your mp3's and other data files on there, and take a Ghost image of the primary drive. That way you won't have to reinstall everything again if (when?) it fails. Just ghost the image back - you can even ghost a new drive if the original completely fails.

Hope this helps,

Pete