I got an Acer aspire 2000 with XP pro SP1 and Office 2k SP3. My laptop experience freeze (hang) in the following situtations: - Running automated excel process which utilize 99% CPU. - surfing on the internet - during boot up - After running the restore DC, sometime I will encounter Invalid HD secter. Any help or ideal will be appericated. Thanks.

Run CHKDSK /F from the Start menu to hunt down bad sectors, although I don't think that's causing the crashes. ******************************************** Could be bad RAM, download Memtest86 and test it. Could be overheating, you should have temperature readings in your BIOS, 20 - 30C system, and 30 - 50C processor are good readings, any higher and you could be looking at random crashes. Could be a dodgy power supply, or simply that your power supply is not good enough. ******************************************** Right-click My Computer, then properties, then advanced, then on Startup and Recovery settings. Make sure "Write an event to the system log" is checked, apply and exit. This will force Xp to write an error statement in your Event Viewer, which you can then use to gain more information about the problem. If this option was ALREADY enabled, you can goto Control Panel, Admin Tools, then Event Viewer. Try to remember the last time this happened, then scroll down to entries around that date/time, you will find an error message which will give you more detail. You can then either post the info back here, or take it to the Microsoft Knowledge Base. I don't suffer from insanity, I embrace it.

Are you using NTFS or FAT32? I would recommend you use NTFS on the laptop as it's more robust, and not as flaky as FAT32. If you are then you need to get some tools to check that drive out. Most manufacturers offer disk tools so get the one for your drive. With Hooners suggestions you should be able to clear this up. If the laptop and/or the drive is new, I'd certainly take it back. I'm not that familiar with Acer laptops myself. (Does BBC Micro disk Elite mean anything??) HTH, J.