why would it wipe my passwords and hame pages?

Dunno, John. Maybe by writing was is held in cache back to disk? If there are issues with RAM and the cache becomes corrupt maybe it looses some of the details? Who knows the secrets of the Micros**t magic box? :-)

Can't do any harmn to run a cleanup and diagnostics check anyway. I use Iolo's 'System Mechanic' which has a 'try before you buy' option.

Cheers

Dave