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Message: [QUOTE="Anna, post: 13824385"] Reidel: Assuming you haven't as yet resolved your problem... First of all it's imperative that you have determined that these "minor issues" reported by your anti-virus program are not at the root of your problem. If malware *is* the cause of the problem you're experiencing the first order of business is to return the system to a malware-free state. Although you're working with an OEM machine I'm assuming that the "installation cd" you speak of is not the usual recovery/restoration type of XP OS CD furnished by the OEM but one that will allow you to run a Repair install of the OS. When you "went into repair" to invoke the chkdsk command presumably you accessed the Recovery Console to do so. When you ran chkdsk did you do so using chkdsk /f or chkdsk /r? I infer that since you didn't indicate anything to the contrary chkdsk did not report any problems in the system; is that right? Have you tried booting into Safe Mode and selecting "Last Known Good Configuration" or using Safe Mode to boot to your Desktop and invoking System Restore to an earlier point-in-time?... (see Method 5 in [URL]http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302796[/URL]) No luck there? Hopefully you have the Dell bootable diagnostic CD that should have come with your PC. If you do have such, perhaps that will shed some light on the problem you're experiencing. I assume your possible intention to "doing an in-place upgrade" is a reference to undertaking a Repair install of the OS (again assuming you have an XP OS installation CD that will permit you to do so). You are correct in expressing some anxiety re losing (or corrupting) data should the Repair install go awry for one reason or another. That's always a possibility, albeit not a common or usual one in our experience based on our undertaking many XP OS Repair installs over the years. But it does happen and you must consider that as a possible pitfall. Since you have indicated that this data involves important business files we would strongly advise you to clone the contents of the present HDD to another HDD and work with the clone should you decide to undertake a Repair install of the OS or continue to "manipulate" your HDD in an effort to resolve the problem. At the very least remove the HDD from the system and connect it as a secondary HDD in another working machine and (assuming the disk is non-defective) try to access its contents and copy off any files that are important to you. Hopefully if & when you resolve this problem - at least to the point where you can retrieve the files that are important to you - you will undertake future comprehensive backups of your system on a routine/frequent basis using a disk-cloning or disk-imaging program. Anna [/QUOTE]

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