Windows XP xp kept me up all night

[Salient]

Please could someone help me with some very strange xp problems - I am quite new to computers, so please be gentle )

I have trouble opening control panel where it searches for ages and sometimes crashes, other times it opens fine. svchost.exe is stating an error 0x7c918fea the data could not be "written" on startup and also generic host svs for win 32 usually if not always appears within a minute of startup, I cant turn on my windows firewall because the firewall\internet connection service cannot start

I'm on an centrino laptop with xp pro sp2 with AVG free antivirus and spybot which i ran a scan with and deleted about 10 spyware programs yesterday.

Should I just try to re-install, i really dont want to ( but would it be a guaranteed fix if i did? I have tried everything i can find on the net but i'm not too good at computers yet :0(

Many thanks for any replies! I have to get some sleep now!!

 

[Abarbarian]

A re-install will fix the problem . If you do re-install partition your hard drive into at least two , one for the operating system and one for data , makes life easier if you ever need to re-install again .

There may be a way to fix your problem without a re-install but I can't help you there .

 

[TriplexDread]

Try this

Goto your quicklaunch bar START/RUN/

Type in chkdsk

A dos window will apppear and will start scanning

If not do the same again START/RUN/

cmd

then at prompt

chkdsk

If it finds errors then reboot into safe mode and type

again START/RUN/

then

chkdsk /f

it may try fix them straight away or ask you permission to correct errors on next boot. Say yes and let it do its job