thank you all for your help. happy to say that im using my computer this time. i called the manufacturer for a boot disk, they said the one i had was defective, call the store. called the store that i bought it from, told them i need a boot disk, said i should call the manufacturer. bottom line, no help rendered. as it turns out, cleaning the drive via killdisk, and then clean installing windows did the trick. so far, problems are gone, but im waiting for any virus/worm to rear its head before im totally scot free. wanted to post an update and a thanks to everyone who does this for free! thanks!