i'm on windows xp pro sp2
my set-up is amd athalon 3000+ Mega hertz
256 graphics card
1 gig DDR ram
an ASRock MB
sound blaster audiology sound card
maxtor HD- 200 gig 8 MB cache + external HD 400 gig

The Problem.
I've being experiecing slow download speed from P2P networks and my news-group service. I have 20 Mb connection it was going about 3Mb. but on the advice of my ISP i put my computer into safe mode with networking. now my speeds are about 14Mb which is great if i liked safe-mode. The windows is a fresh install...just over 2 weeks ago. no dodgy software, no dodgy web-sites. I maintain high security on my IE. I only download from well-known "good" sites. When reinstalling windows i used a full format on both drives, one didn't complete due to a persistant clicking sound from the HD... it got to 99%. The external HD, which is FAT32 had NO programs on it, only music, video, and pic's, NO GIFs. The other two drives are NTFS. After finding out i could format the whoole drive completely with thorough format i quick formated it, which completed. I have PCGuard AV, which is free with my internet service, ive tested it with a harmless viruses, it found it (eicar or something like that). i formated previously due to viral infection. how do i fix this problem without formating as a preference. I'm sending the clicking HD back to the manufactuerer, Maxtor same as other drive. I've tried scan disking it with Seatools, norton disk and the native windows scan-disk tool, it gets to 99% then clicks and fails to complete. i also tried the dos scan disk command with the relevent tags included. its still under warranty, and its still a pain in the back-side

So do you have a working hard drive on this system now?

yeah, i have a working hard drive write now the 200 gig maxtor and the 400 gig hitachi. The 200 gig Maxtor being my Main/Windows drive