I am trying to get a stable reinstall on my laptop now. It is developing the same tendencies as before. Windows updates seem to make it unstable as does using Internet Explorer which shuts down on occasion. I have 2 Hard drives to try as well as both WinXP pro and XPhome. I find it hard to believe that each HD and each of my installation disks are all corrupt, but that may be the case. Is it possible that the formatting process I'm using doesn't totally wipe the HD and that something is staying on each of these HD's to corrupt my installations.