It really shouldn't be a virus, I have all the bells & whistles when it comes to software for that. I will just have to save up for a new hard drive and probably Windows 7. I have some of my photos on Facebook and most should be on my external backup disk. Thanks for the tips. I've been there before, and since I feel my computer is my lifeline to the outside world, it really Tees me off to have a computer crash that I can't recover from. I will prevail, no cotton pickin' electronic gizmo is going to get away with this!