This is Billy Janets oldest she left this up on here and ive read the post
first im not really sure what your level of experience with the daemons that seem to appear in computers from time to time is
but i believe what she meant chkdsk /r /f don't forget the spaces
as to those cds the hirens cd has an anti virus on it and while they aren't that common there are still viruses that can infect the parts of your computer that would survive a format
if you consider your self a more patient than most novice computer users you could actually look into using an alternative operating system namely a *nix variant a windows user friendly version is actually called xandros
http://www.xandros.com/products/home.html
i used it a little a while back and if you are willing to learn and read it could be fun.
i cant really recommend you do anything that would be illegal but maybe you could get a friend who has a student in college to pick you up a copy of windows xp or vista for student evaluation i know my school did this for students in the IS dept.
