Hey, I havent been around for a bit. (sorry about that. ) But ive got a problem with my new[-ish] acer laptop. Ill be working normally, have a few apps open (Opera, irssi, winamp, trillian) and be working normally. Then, my hard disk will start working non-stop and everything but the active application will freeze for a few mins. Whats going on here? Its really annoying. Im hoping there is some option other then reinstalling windows... edit: to expand on that, Ive defraged (although it didnt seem to defrag very much), did badware scans, run ccleaner, etc. Another edit: it hasnt always been like this. Edit, again. problem fixed. the drive was in PIO mode due to a powerfailure.