A couple days ago all was well until my computer started lagging a bit so I WENT to restart it to clear things up. When it came back on again it immediately said cannot find registry/configuration file and would not load anything, even in safe mode. I'd just see the background come up and that was it, no programs would open. So I ran it with CD support and managed to fix that...kind of. I could get into windows but all my files were damaged. Not only ones that were there before but I was DLing a few files and they became damaged too in mid-DL. After that I restarted the computer again and its going back to the windows screen but no programs will open.

This all happened pretty suddenly, everything was working FINE until about 2 minutes before I got that FIRST error message. The HD is only about a year old and hasn't taken any damage that I know of but it won't hold any info without damaging it so my guess would be thats the problem. But I'm not great with computers so any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks Have you tried reinstalling Windows XP and testing your Hard Disk Drive using diagnostic software?I'm running scandisk and such right now and im going to try and backup a couple files. Then I'll try reinstalling. I'm just getting a few things done before I do that because I've never tried reformatting myself before.What do you mean by damaged? Does this computer have virus protection?Quote

I'm running scandisk and such right now and im going to try and backup a couple files. Then I'll try reinstalling. I'm just getting a few things done before I do that because I've never tried reformatting myself before.