System Restore works a lot like the Undo command in Microsoft Word. You can use System Restore to remove any system changes that were made since the last time you remember your computer working correctly. System Restore does not affect your personal data files (such as Microsoft Word documents, browsing history, drawings, favorites, or e–mail) so you won't lose changes made to these files.



I'd run diagnostics on the machine. Make sure the harddrive isn't straight out failing or something.

on bootup, you can try pushing F12 at the dell screen to get to the one time boot menu. You may have the option of harddrive or ide diagnostics. If you don't though, you should have the option of diagnostics partition or simply diagnostics.

If you don't have those, boot off of the drivers and utilities cd's and you can run the express diagnostics. Those will test the harddrive fairly well, and if there's any major issues they shoudl find em. If it doesn't you can always run the custom diags on the harddrive, but a few of them tests will take about an hour or so.

or you could find out hte manufacturer of the harddrive and download their diagnostics, but thats generally a lotta work.