xp playing up

[mackab24]

hi everyone, im having quite a few problems with my pc at the mo. a few days ago i turned the computer on as normal but nothing was happening, their was no loading screen and no light flashing to say the hard drive was doing anything. so i put my windows xp home edition disc in and opted for a repair rather that to format. so now the computer is coming on again but its taking an eternity. plus all the software seems to load up as though it has just been installed, i.e webcam and avg. ive done a scan using avg and its coming back clean do u think a system restore will do the trick or will i have to format?

[pauln90]

1st have you recently installed any software or hardware that could be causing a conflict.

You say you have run AVG but have you also run a spyware tool such as ad-aware or spybot.

Next go to the hard drive manufacturers website and see if they have a downloadable diagnostic tool which may point to a hard drive failure.

As a last resort try the system restore.