I just received this error after doing a forceful restart of the computer - it was taking forever to load Vista after "sleeping". The thing is, I shut it down completely; and it started in both safe mode and normally. I've also had problems installing and uninstalling programs as of late - it takes forever. I'm guessing there could be a connection here? ... and what could the underlying problem be? Would a reformat and clean win- installation solve the problem?

That sounds like your hard drive is or has failed. You can perform a drive fitness test on it but you should know the brand and model in order to download the right utility to test with. You gave no hardware specs so I have no way of knowing what you have. If you have a desktop computer open the case and get the drive information off the label. While in there check the cables for good connection. Exercise anti-static precautions and be sure to unplug the computer before starting.

Thanks for the reply and sorry for this late one. The computer is working pretty much on par with how it worked earlier. I get this issue (sometimes) when I try to resume windows after it has been put to sleep. After which I'm forced to reset the computer and delete the restore/resume point, then boot it normally. Don't know if this is related at all, but recently I've had this rather weird issue where a process named 'dllhost.exe' takes huge resources - worse than a new game from what I can tell from the task manager. This slow the computer down to the point that if I'm playing a video the image/sound stutters. After some googling it's apparently a safe windows application, but why the sudden spike in resource usage? The HDD is a samsung spinpoint iirc. Come to think of it, sometimes it takes a second for it to access information after which I hear a small clicking/cracking sound (if that makes any sense). This has been present for a while though, even before this recent failure to boot from 'sleep'.

Go to the Samsung site at the link below and download a drive fitness software. Burn to CDR and boot to it. http://www.samsung.com/us/support/m...