Computer help?

The first thing to do is assume that it is software. To that end what you want to do is run your system with as little additional software running in the background as possible.Try this:1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. In the 'Open' dialoge type 'msconfig' and click okay
4. Click the startup tab.
5. Uncheck everything
6. Click okay
7. When prompted restart your computer
8. After restart it will warn you that you made changes to start up, click the check to say you don't want to see that message anymore and select the option that says you do NOT want to open the system configuration utility. If you accidently click the other option, all that will happen is the screen you were at when you ran msconfig will appear again and you can click cancel.Now just trying doing your normal tasks. Things may seem faster and you may stop your crashes.Note though that what you really did was turn off a bunch of software that may have some side effects on the rest of your system. For example, certain application will take longer to start the first time you launch them. Some of those applications you disabled are partial loaders. They sit in memory so that the next time you use a certain application, it will load up a bit faster. Common applications that this effects are Adobe Acrobat, RealPlayer, CD Burning software, Print assistance softare, anti-virus software.Some of the other things you are potentially turning off are applications that live in the system tray, the icons located next to your clock. These are often present to allow quick access to configuration items like your mouse, monitor, network card, etc. These only exist for convienence and if you never change these settings they only eat up space, memory, and potentially cause problems.I run with no startup items and I have no problems.If you do have problems with an application because of this, very unlikly because most apps will simply restart the necessary processes, you can go back to that list and look for an entry related to the software in question and re-enable it.Also, you may need to make sure that your computer is patched as best it can be. Make sure you have XP Service Pack II. If you are not sure that you do you probably do not. Go to Windows Update: FAQ to get it. If you cannot stay online long enough to download it then you may need to borrow a friend's computer, download it and burn it onto a cd to take it to your computer for installation.Past that you are probably looking at a problem with windows itself or a hardware problem.Reinstalling windows is not all that bad. I do it regulary because windows often becomes bloated with crap the more you do on it. Even for a very novice user you should be able to do it in a couple of hours. Just make sure you have any essentials backed up to a cd-rom and pop in your XP cd. It may first ask you to try a 'recovery' which you should try first. If that doesn't work you can try again and IIRC there should be an option to say reinstall rather than recovery.Vendors restore CDs vary. I am basing my explanation of the install process off of how it works for a standard windows installation cd.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Yea the contents of the blue screen may be important but I fear that it is only a sign of memory problems (hardware). Blue screen errors are often quite cryptic though simply stating that there was a fatal error or just plain giving you a memory dump.XP rarely blue screens. The only time I have ever seen XP or 2k blue screen was when a stick of ram was not properly seated or the stick of ram was bad.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

No. I have just seen more blue screens related to hardware problems then I have software problems.A blue screen is usually a fatal memory error in windows. This can be because the memory is bad or because windows is bad. Windows can go bad when a piece of software starts misbehaving.Norton Ghost is a program that can take an image of your hard drive. I am not sure why your friend recommended it unless he meant a different program called Ghost.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Ive not seen a blue screen because of a bad disk although there is always a first for something.The constant needing to run a disk check is symptomatic of a bad disk and because of that should be targetted first. It could be that the windows binaries are corrupted on the disk and causing the memory dump.Replacing a disk is painful enough for a novice that I would recommend that someone else do it. If money is an issue, you may want to look up some hardware tutorials online before diving in.By the age I can guess that a regular ATA drive is needed. It can be easy for someone who doesn't know to go out and by an SATA drive since that is the new standard and get frustrated when there is no way to connect it to the MB.

Good luck, and make sure you have good backups first. =)

The disk going bad causing problems with paging is actually much more likely than the binaries being corrupted. Good point.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

You probably are not going to need anything that big so you should be able to get a new disk for under $100. YOu are also going to probably need an ATA drive NOT a SATA drive but whoever you get to replace it should check for you. You can maybe look for yourself. If you open your case and can identify your hard drive, an ATA drive will have a ribbon-like cable attaching it to your motherboard.My favorite brand of hard drive is Seagate. They tend to be the forefront in reliability although they tend not to be as much of a speedster as other drives which is why some do not like them. I'll take reliability over a 1% speed boost in the part that is the slowest thing in my computer anyway.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I would recommendSeagate BarraCuda 7200.9 ST3802110A 80GB 7200 RPM 2MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.comNot only that drive but also that online store. Newegg is just plain the best.

Umm, I am guessing it is a standard PC configuration so yes.What is the alternative?

I am gonna agree with the Dr. Go low tech and get off of zip disks. They are a dead technology.Any newish black box computer you are going to buy will have a cd burner. Get your data off the old machine by going back and forth with a thumb drive. After that you can keep a backup of your data on CD which is much better.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)