I have not used this laptop for 2 years, booted into XP, updated (of course} then installed Ubuntu 10.4. Everything worked fine for about 15 minutes then total lock down. Rebooted into XP and the same thing happened. I'm not sure this is due to the dual boot, could it be a hardware problem? The laptop has a Pentium 1133MHz processor and 640 MB of RAM. CMOS battery is good, BIOS checks out, Memory check is good. I'm clueless here. Any Ideas?

Certainly sounds like hardware.

SUGGESTIONS:
1. "Blow out" your computer (take it to a computer shop, if need be) - clear out any internal dust, etc

2. Run a full chkdisk and defrag (under Windows); do any disk checking you can under Linux. In particular, run any diagnostics you can find on either platform.

3. Look at your Linux syslog (/var/log/messages) and Windows event log ([Start], run, eventvwr).

If you're lucky, you might get an error indicating the problem.

Otherwise, look at the last entry that occurred BEFORE the lockup.

4. Google for "PC freezes" or variants - see what you can find.

5. Consider budgeting for a new laptop

If you find the problem, by all means post back what it was, and how (or if) you resolved it!

Good luck .. PSM

PS:
If your BIOS supports logging, by all means turn it on. And see if you get any errors in the BIOS log after the next freeze!

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Are the laptop's hard disk devices okay? boot up from CDROM with diagnose CD via downloading it the below URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd

Hi Kenter, I will try that it couldn't hurt but I think paulsm4 solved it so far. I did open it up and blew it out with a can of Air, it was filthy. I then went into var/log/messages and found an error that a friend helped correct for me. I'm good with hardware but lousy with software. Still learning.
The rescue CD sounds like a good idea, I'll do it. Thanks!