T500 hangs unexpectedly forcing hard reboot

[baertracks]

Last night my T500 suddenly began "hanging" in mid-program. A simple operation within Excel or Paint Shop would end with "Program not responding". The crusor can still move (and keeps spinning) so the laptop is not "frozen". However, I am unable to get to the Task Manager to close the program that is "hung." In fact, I can't even get to the Task Manager screen.

Eventually the screen "fogs out" encouraging me to give up. I am forced at that point to do a "hard reboot", i.e., holding down the on/off key until the machine shuts off and then restarting the laptop.

I have not installed any new programs recently. The only new "error message" that I am receiving is that I am "running out of space on SW_Preload E"" I've tried "cleaning" and uninstalling extra programs but that doesn't seem to make a difference. Drive E: is still as full as ever while Drive C: has 150 GB of free space (on a 500 GB hard drive).

Is the "full" Preload Drive related to the hanging problem? If so, then how to I decongest Drive E:? If not, then what other things should I be doing to diagnose and solve this problem.

I have, BTW, rebooted into Safe Mode, and things seem to work OK. However, I don't have access to printers from Safe Mode.

Thanks for any and all assistance in troubleshooting this problem.

FRANK

[Harryc]

Run chkdsk c: /f from the command prompt (using run as admin-the right click). Also, try deleting all but the latest backup in rescue and recovery.

[baertracks]

Run chkdsk c: /f from the command prompt (using run as admin-the right click). Also, try deleting all but the latest backup in rescue and recovery.

I ran chkdsk. No problems noted.
I removed, cleaned and reinserted the memory(6 GB)
I ran a memory test, and everything looks fine.
I did a complete search for viruses, etc using NIS2009. I only found one low risk "cookie" out of 2,800,000 items scanned (but still lots of free space on my 500 GB HD).

Could the number of items on the hard drive be the problem? Have a reached some sort of limit that the indexing system can't keep up? Maybe it's time for that massive clean up that I've been postponing for a couple of years.

I'm now running in safe mode with networking, and the computer still tries to "hang". By "hang" I mean that the crusor "spins" like its working, but never stops unless I reboot. At least from within safe mode I'm able to get to the task manager and exit the "hanging" applications.

It problem seems to happen most often when I'm trying to do a simple command within Windows Explorer. It makes me wonder if that part of Windows might be corrupted. I'm on the road without my Windows install disks.

Has anybody experienced a similar problem? Any suggestions for a fix?

FRANK
Baertracks