I'm mainly asking this out of interest (and perhaps to get some pointers as to what to watch out for), but why would an OS lock up and then -when rebooted- be fatally damaged? From time to time my PC has locked up, but nearly always on reboot the problem has gone away. However, on two occasions (last night being the most recent), the system has not been in an operable state. I hadn't installed any software or hardware recently and the system has been running without problems for a while now, but I was surfing a rail site for timetable/tickets and, suddenly, nothing would work except the mouse cursor. Everything was frozen solid and couldn't be accessed (I had two other run-of-the-mill programmes open on the task bar and a bunch of stuff in the system tray). Ctrl-Alt-Del didn't bring up the task manager so I just re-booted. After the Windows screen gave way to the "loading your personal settings" screen I had to wait an age, like 15/20 minutes, before I got the desktop. Then the desktop took another good 15 minutes to start bringing up programme icons etc and the task bar had disappeared entirely. Several programmes wouldn't load at all due to exception errors, programmes requiring passwords wouldn't open with their designated passwords, opening an explorer window took ages, and I couldn't navigate out of it when it did. The help facility wouldn't appear so I couldn't access the restore option and so on and so on. A further reboot yielded the same result - basically it was FUBAR'd good and proper. Fortunately, I was able to use a recent drive image to overwrite the mess and (apart from ZoneAlarm wanting to re-instate all the programme permissions again!) everything seems OK at the moment. The only thing I could think of was that something had speared the registry? So, anyone else have this happen, and any ideas regarding possible causes? Thanks chancer Remember, you are unique - just like everone else

no routine maintenance [defrag, chkdsk..] no personal protection [spyware/av/spam filters/firewall] hardware issues [temp/drivers] Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

Run hard drive diagnostics. Having a drive with sectors starting to fail is a string candidate for the problem. When a sector fails that contains critical boot files the system will BSOD among other symptoms. I see drives and sometimes memory cause Windows to fail. As you pointed out restoring an image is allowing it to boot. The install is not using the area that could be failed sectors since the hardware already identified them and bypassed them. If bad the next sector failure will start the problem all over again. Richard

I agree with Rrlyon. The delays make me think it's a hard drive problem. If you hear clicks from the hard drive, that would confirm it.

data is stored in clusters which is collection of sectors. running chkdsk /r will test every cluster and mark those that failed as bad while also attempting to move the data to a known good cluster. If you have SMART enabled in the bios it will give you a boot warning about eminate drive failure long before the heads start hitting the case [clicking sound]. I would not concure on the conclusion that its the hard drive given the description. Description fits overheating and spyware infection better than sector failure. Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

It's a real poser. Wanderer, I have anti virus and spyware running 24/7, and a defrag programme (Ashampoo magical defrag 2), but I don't routinely run chkdsk unless Windows reports a problem (should I be doing that?). aegis/rrylon:: I guess I'd edge towards this being a HDD problem but is it not odd that I don't get BSODs, and a drive image restore sets things to rights? Anyway, thanks all for the input - much appreciated! Remember, you are unique - just like everone else

Mostly on Desktop computers---- DUST collects inside computers, and can cause hardware damage, overheating, faulty fans, faulty drives Is yours clean.???? http://www.makeitsimple.com/project... ^^^ Some pictures ^^^ ---------------- Look for leaking or bulging capacitors on the motherboard. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.... Some pictures of them