>My guess is it's not a Windows problem. Either bad hardware or driver.
>
>>Both have crapped out on me.

I wonder if it could be a problem with RAM -- I had that happen to me on my old XP box when I first got it. It would work OK for a month or two, then would on occasion hiccup with weird problems, then finally not able to boot at all. After the second time I'd reinstalled Windows, I decided to locate a hardware diagnostic program and start running various tests. Sure enough, found out that one of the memory modules was bad. After replacing it (and reinstalling Windows again for good measure), everything worked OK for a number of years.