Good news everybody,

I'm a relatively new Dell user, since I bought my Computer about 2 months ago.
Now for all those forum specalists... I really searched the forums for a solution to my problem, with no success.

I have a DELL *Dimension 4500 Performance*, which is probably an european model and not known in the US...

It basically consists of a:
- P IV 2 Gig
- Intel 800 Chipset
- Maxtor 6L080L4; 80 Gig HDD
- 256 MB RAM
- NEC CD-RW NR-9100A
- NEC DV-5800A

Runnig either W2K or XP Prof/Home no difference, the System has a massive loss of performance compared to what it was when I first got it.
XP Home which was pre-installed had quite a performance but crashed on a Micro$oft Internet Update. (You know the windowsupdate.microsoft.com thing...)
After rebooting, the system had killed the MBR plus the partion table. It was not possible to use either the System Recovery options built in XP or the safe mode option. Yes, it would boot but then just result in a bluescreen of death or hang while initializing the HDD.
After fixing the MBR and reformating the HDD, the problems would persist in parts.
I have a W2K system up and running by now, but at what cost!? The system crashes regularly with various bluescreens or other pre-OSroblems.

The POST leds showed an IDE-Problem in the begining but then disappeared.
When the system manages to start, what one could call normal, it suffers a severe lack of performance... It takes about 7 to 11 minutes to start either OS (W2K / XP)
and the HDD-led shows a permanent ACT state.

I checked all settings in the OSes with no success at all!
i.e. I checked things like cache options for the disk drives and things like DHCP lookup or automatic search for printers.

I susspect the HDD to be damaged.

Thank you for any kind of help...