For me the symptoms were consistant with a classic attack on my partition boot sector and the main boot record (the part on the disk that tells the computer how to start up). It's possible that the disk 'crashed' because of a power surge or something, but it seems very much like a virus attack. Your symptoms don't seem so clear. I'm not sure what you mean by "restricted Windows mode." You should run an anti-virus program every day, one that gets updates daily from the net. You may be suffering from some other degradation. Windows and other operating system are said to degrade over time due to registry problems and other stuff. This can be solved by saving all your data onto some other medium, like DVDs, or even another hard drive installed in your computer. Then reformat your drive and reload Windows and everything else. I know it's a big job but it's recommended by some to do this every few years to keep your system snappy. Whatever you do, definitely back up your data as soon as possible. Your data is much more valuable than the computer. Tim