I know I have mentioned this a few times on line but thought I would add it here. Spinrite is a disk repair,maintance and file recovery software. Check out the details at GRC.com. I swear by it. My systems run for 3-4 years without re-installs and I believe a large part of the reason is this program as I run it every 3 or 4 months to refresh the drive surface. I know the graphics card and the cpu get all the attention but your drive is just as important.
Cheers
Woop

Ill check it out is it $freeware. I swear by a program called Advanced System Care its freeware for non profesional use. Finds all the gremlins and has a pretty good defrag program included. Let me know if ya try it theres a tweak that perfects the scan.

Cheers Lack

Yeah I love freeware and swear by a lot of the programs I use. I will check out the program you this one out. But Spinrite is not freeware and I can assure you as a user of about 6 years of this software there is nothing out there this does what Spinrite does. I have also being following the authors podcast on security for 2 years now and he gives a customer testimonial on each weekly broadcast. This program is probably responsible for reviving more dead windows pc's and recovering more lost files then anything out there. Used as a preventive maintenance program prevents the common corruption of files that leads to blue-screens and boot load failures. What can I say I love this program.
woop.
ps we should start a favorite freeware thread here I sure we all have lots of them.

This isnt freeware but it is legal in all 50 states. http://www.k2-incense.com/

The VLC media player is a great free player that always seems to play everything i throw at it. Also for anyone still using XP winbar is an awsome program that makes using a laptop easier. Also for the road warrier Network Stumbler is a great free tool for closing in on those open networks.