My system, which until last week booted normally (fast) -
Now takes several minutes or comes to a complete halt during
the boot sequence with an error such as

contains file system with errors

I thought it might be a hard drive problem and did a scan disk under DOS
-no errors - I then un-installed the last program i had added (Keepit)
backup program - Now it drops out of the GUI boot screen - but it does boot somewhat faster, and does not show the file system error anymore.

Is there anything I can do, short of a complete UBUNTU re-install, to
find and fix this problem?

Thank

what FS are you using i assume you couldnt scan your ubuntu root partition under dos you could try booting ubuntu without quiet and splash to see if there are any problem's and run fsck

man fsck


also it is possible to get your boot splash back again with "sudo update-alternatives --config usplash-artwork.so" if this does not work for you then you probably need to re install usplash

I tried - but allas -at the end I did have to reload.
Thanks for your help.

I tried all the Ubuntus's, from 6.04 LTS, which was the easiest to install, and had no problems what so ever. I went to the next version, and stopped at 8, why?
Because these ones were the most troublesome, nothing but install problems etc....

I went back to Mandriva, it was pretty good as well, but I prefer Gnome over KDE.
I then discovered Mint, sure it is a Ubuntu runoff, but it is the only one, and which I can chose between Gnome and KDE, installation was super fast, kept it simple, and my OS is flawless now. It seems though, through experience and that it can take just one package to render your OS useless, I know which ones, so I stay away from them. I have 2 computers that are Linux Mint Elyssa. The other is a Windows XP.

If you like Ubuntu, but are having problems, why not try Mint, it is based on Hardy, a lot more user friendly, and will make your home computing friendly.
The network feature is great as well, I can transfer files between the two with drag and drop, as long has it is set up has a shared folder. Debian was a little more difficult.