>Hi all
>Some of you have helped out regarding my E: HD apparently being flaky.
>
>At this point the E: drive is no longer suspect - read on...
>
>The system, including the E: drive, performed flawlessly when running in Safe Mode. Many times and for longish times.
>
>I had to move some HD cables (love those SATA connectors) in order to be ble to run Windows "Repair" (booted from CD), and while it ran to end I ended up with an unuseable system.
>
>SO I ran a complete XP SP2 install, again from CD. Again it ran to end. After booting up I was able to run installs of certain MB things and the video adapter.
>These were needed to enable the MBs network adapter and to set up my dual-screen video.
>
>The result - I now have a system that simply freezes up at random but fairly quickly. It *may* be dependent on how many mouse-clicks I do. If I can get into Windows updtw with few mouse clicks it will run (check for updates) for a whie before freezing. If I click lots it frezes quickly on one of the clicks.
>
>The freeze is a full blown freeze. No keystrokes, no mousing, etc works in any way.
>
>I've run with the E: drive disconnected with no difference.

In Safe mode, your system is booted without loading a bunch of drivers, services etc. which means that some of the hardware isn't exercised. If your system is reliable in Safe mode, and not in standard boot mode there are 2 possibilities:

- Your hardware is OK, and you have a bad driver. You could search the Web for updated drivers that are either specific to your exact make/model/version of mobo/adapter, or are "reference" drivers (e.g. for nVidia or ATI graphics)

- Your hardware is not OK, and when a good driver tries to activate/access it, it takes down the whole system. Your mobo maker may offer one or more downloadable diagnostics.

Other things I've seen that could cause/contribute to this:

- Bad memory. Booting in standard mode takes more memory; maybe a bad RAM chip isn't being used in Safe mode. If possible, try running with half the memory removed; if the problem persists, try with the other half.

- Some new systems have power-hungry video cards. If your power supply is too small or failing it might make the whole system fail when the driver opens full access to the video hardware, increasing its power draw.

- Hopefully you're not overclocking anything, either that you know of or that was supplied unknowingly to you by an unscrupulous dealer