clicked the wrong button, sorry.
As I was saying, problems opening programs, Outlook Express, Opera, Disk Cleanup, Disk Defragmenter, my virus killer seemed to be working but wouldn't auto update.

The (manually) updated Virus killer found nothing twice, the harddrive contained a total of 30Gb when I expected it to contain less than 8. The problems began, perhaps coincidentally, when I downloaded a music program -see the Nero Substitute thread.
The harddrive seems to be freezing, the little LED staying steadily alight instead of the usual flickering.
When operating, the problem programs do not behave similarly, OE and Opera behaving normally (after the delayed opening)and DCleanup and DFrag taking forever because of the freezing. I've un and reinstalled the VKiller. Any ideas, anyone