Bluddy Windows :(

[bhinderharminder]

sounds to me then like one of your IDE strings is messed up, or BIOS wasn't properly auto-detecting... either way, i'd get backing up onto CD.. choose everything you want to save, whack it onto a CD (if your CD writer still works) and that should do it.

and i've just noticed your sig.. that would be aline from hackers yea?

yea, i think so