Next time you have to format and reload, and it sounds like you are going to, then run scandisk on it.

Windows 95,98 & ME have a boot floppy, or you can create a rescue disk in windows, which will run "scandisk"
just stick in the floppy, turn on and at the "A:\" type"scandisk".
this will give you an idea of the health of your hard-disk, and they do have finite lives.

Another thing to do is get hold of Tufftest lite which is a freebie, which will test all the HW components: HDD,FDD,video card etc...

another utility to get hold of is "memtest" which will test your RAM.
Incidentally Linux is a lot more fussy about memory quality than windows and this sounds like the problem.

One cause is having gold plated contacts contacting tin plated contacts in your RAM, problems usually take 6 months to show up.

check this out

http://www.intel.com/support/mother...op/genmbfaq.htm

http://www.intel.com/support/mother...b/cs-012848.htm

hope this helps
floppy