Right now, 99.9% of the time when I boot my PC up, I can get to the desktop but none of the programs will work. I can't even shut down without having to flip the switch on the PSU. I've had this issue for some time and have dealt with it by restarting the PC several times, sometimes taking hours, until it will function correctly. But now, even when I can get my programs to work, chkdsk and defrag still will not function. When I try to use defrag, the window comes up but none of the buttons work. No error message, nothing, just the defrag window there taking up space. When I reboot to try and run chkdsk, it doesn't read my HD correctly and just skips the process altogether and goes straight to starting XP. I've got a lot of time and money invested in this PC, so is there anything beyond a reformat that can fix this problem?

How to do a system repair.--Boot from the xp cd and go past the recovery console to the install menu. Select repair the existing installation. You won't lose any data except the xp updates. Unless you have a slipstream sp1 Or SP2 cd you will have to d/l sp1 or sp2 and all subsequent updates. You MUST have at least SP1 installed and the updates for security reasons. Be sure the firewall and A/V is active before going online as you will be susceptible to sasser and msblaster.