I have a Dell, 40 gig hard drive, with 256 MB of RAM (78.20 MB still available) and the following partitions:
C: Windows XP home, NTSF, 6.83 GB (3.69 GB used, 3.13 GB free)
D: Programs, FAT32, 11.7 GB (4.28 GB used, 7.42 GB free)
E: Music/Image storage, FAT32, 3.40 GB (2.07 GB used, 1.33 GB free)
The remaining hard-drive space is Linux Mandrake 9.0

I am experiencing problems that I'm assuming are because I am over taxing my resources.
CD drives are both showing 100% used space in properties regardless as to if a cd is even in the drive and are having the following problems:
Cd-DVD rom drive is showing errors in system viewer:
-An error was detected on device \Device\CdRom0 during a paging operation.
-The device, \Device\CdRom0, has a bad block.

The CD-RW drive will not burn cd's, always says to insert a disk into the drive, but if a previously burned disk is inserted I can access the files.
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Also in even viewer are frequent occurences of these errors and warnings:
-The server {520CCA63-51A5-11D3-9144-00104BA11C5E} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.
-The System Restore filter encountered the unexpected error '0xC000009A' while processing the file 'schedule.sch' on the volume 'HarddiskVolume1'. It has stopped monitoring the volume.
-The description for Event ID ( 1001 ) in Source ( NAVAP ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: .
-Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2600.0, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.1.2600.0, fault address 0x00003207.
-Windows saved user PAININTHEASS\Wanda registry while an application or service was still using the registry during log off. The memory used by the user's registry has not been freed. The registry will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.
-The Application Management service terminated with the following error:
The specified module could not be found. This is often caused by services running as a user account, try configuring the services to run in either the LocalService or NetworkService account.

System Restore is not working

There is an unsigned driver for a web cam I tried to install that I have removed many times but will not disapear from add/remove in control panel

All windows updates are installing with the media player icon

Start-up and shut down are very slow

Random system freezes (can't even ctrl/alt/delete to see what's running)

At shutdown, hard drive always beeps. (one short tone, same that occurs if I try to do anything when the system is frozen.

Strangely enough IE has not slowed noticably...and ...LINUX IS WORKING FINE!
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With all the problems I'm experiencing I'm assuming it may be best to wipe the drive and start over with fewer partitions.

Is there anyway for me to wipe and re-install drives C-E without compromising my linux installation?
Would adding more memory help at all?
Would cutting down the number of partitions by removing D and installing programs on same partition as Windows be advisable?
Are there any suggestions or possible clean-up/fix solutions I havn't addressed?


I'm becoming very frustrated....these problems all appeared around the same time, sporadically for the first couple days and now consistantly.

Thank you for your help.