I'll spare you the grisly details ....

I just reformatted my computer. Waaay to many things were going wrong. Like the fact that the computer wanted to run checkdisk every time I rebooted. I was rather nervous, as I have never done this before. And once you've started reformatting, all of your data is gone .... forever. I think I checked at least a few dozen times to make sure I backed up everything I needed.

So far it looks like I succeeded. Things have been running pretty smoothly. I had a few bumps along the way, like trying to install an illegal version then getting a conscience when it didn't work and buying a $300 retail copy of Windows XP. Thank you Best Buy with your no interest for 6-months. There's still an issue with restoring my Outlook data, but I'm sure that will be solved.

I've wanted to pull my hair out a few times, but I've learned some things and gained a lot of confidence. Now I just have to spend a few days at Mom and Dad's figuring out their computer problems. They always take me out to dinner as payment, though :)