If it's not one thing ...

My few-years old Toshiba laptop with Vista is having software bellyaches. "Sorry, can't see (this) file" kinda thing.  First thought is to save what I can, wipe the drive and rebuild it with Windows 7.  If that's prohibitively expensive, we'll try what remains of XP.

Failing that, it'll wind up on the stack o' dead laptops in the corner, hard drives and useful memory to be excised for further study and rest drilled with a 3/8" bit beyond recognition.

So I'm down to the Asus Netbook in the living room temporarily.  Harummph.