I had either the same or similar problem on my Toshiba Tecra A8 laptop. I also use Windows XP w/SP3. I thought the HDD was failing, vs. memory or mainboard failure. Id upgraded & maxed out the memory (4GB) w/in the year & the Tecra models have reasonably reliable mainboard architecture, vs. the lesser Satellite Pro/Satellite/Portege models. I just paid $75. to correct the problem-partially. The laptop was intermittently blue-screening, the desktop icons & internet icons (Status Bar-lower right) took exceedingly long to initialize at start-up & then Outlook failed to open correctly. The problem was Viruses had entered the Boot Sector. The shop quarantined the Viruses, retrieved the critical data in Outlook & moved it to my Seagate GoFlex 1TB external HDD. I don't know if yours has other symptoms. These were mine. Blue-screening, I found out the hard way, isn't always a component failure. I'll ask the Shop Mgr what the Viruses names were & report back. Also, which Anti-Virus protection software they used to quarantine mine with. Best of luck. PC