So, because I can manage to mess up anything, I decided to try

[yy4me]

and fix-or help along- this dinosaur of a computer. I've done everything possible using hints from here and from www.bleepingcomputer and this thing still was slow as molasses. So...off to Microsoft support. Tried the following with a nothing ventured attitude.

"How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP". Since nothing seemed to speed this thing up, it was my last hope.

Manual steps to run Chkdsk from My Computer or Windows Explorer.
Chose "My Computer" and followed all steps. It took about 6 hours. I figured this thing would be toast but whatever was done, we're moving at warp speed now, compared to before.

I can only guess at what is next. Keep posted (and thanks)

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. Something concerns me here

Depending on the size of the hard drive, that 6 hour disk check seems WAY out of line- some possibilities include the hard drive is on the edge of failure, and the check was seeing a lot of bad sectors and was trying to move the data to usable areas. Another possibility is that 32 bit disk access may be turned off in the computer BIOS, which would mean the computer is accessing the drive at half speed. This may need to be checked. Your hard drive could also be full, in which case you should clean out your temp folders. Check this post to discover where they hide and how to find them: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=242x18605

Further steps that you should now take- as I like to say, I have three words for you:
1. Backup.
2. BACKUP.
3. BACKUP.

Now. Often. Save your important files BEFORE the drive fails.

Other things that may improve performance include a thorough disk defrag. You may also want to check the size of the system's virtual memory (paging or "swap" file)- many times it's set too low. If you have a good portion of free disk space you may want to consider allocating a larger paging file.

One more thing- how much memory does your computer have? You said it's an older machine- perhaps you purchased it during the time of high memory prices. Back then they tended to install minimal memory in their machines- they put in 256mb and called it an XP machine. Although technically true, that's the minimum amount of memory needed for the OS to run. Add a program or two and the machine will crawl. If that's the case, doubling the memory to 512mb will vastly improve things. (If your mobo has the graphics system built into it, it will also "steal" a portion of your physical memory for your video, so your effective memory is somewhat less than what you have on board.)

A good freeware utility that will help you to identify how much memory you have and exactly what kind it is can be found here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/CPU-Z.shtml

It can tell you a lot about your motherboard, but the memory utility is vital if you decide to upgrade your machine.

[Gore1FL]

2. I'd back up your data

and get a new HD.

[ChromeFoundry]

3. How are you doing on free space?

May want to empty your browser cache and then defragment your hard drive.

A free utility to check the health of your drive can be found here:
http://www.hdtune.com/hdtune_255.exe