DescentBB

Over the last couple weeks, I've noticed my Windows XP PC adding strangely. Sometimes, but not always, accessing My Documents takes over a minute and the computer locks up during that time. Other times, I'll hit the Start button and it will seize the entire machine for a minute.

No viruses, no spyware.

At first I thought I would just reinstall Windows, but do you think this is indicative of impending hardware failure?

HDD may have a problem reading some sectors. Try running a full chkdisk (backup 1st tho !) Does anyone knows a good HDD tool ?

If scandisk comes up clean, defrag (or format if that is what you were planning on doing anyway). I've had my system behave in equally strange ways before and it wasn't the hard drive. Like for some unknown reason my system would suddenly take 40 seconds to open notepad. But that was over a year and many system driver updates since the last format, also the system had been running for about 15 days without a reboot at the time.

Did the slow down occur gradually or is this something new that you noticed one day?

Kyouryuu,
Do you have any network drive mappings? If so, XP trying to 'refresh' mappings that may not be active can REALLY slow down the drive and directory refresh. If you have any drive mappings... disconnect them and try again.