Whew! I took out the replacement second internal hard drive (and the external hard drive). Rebooted - everything booted up fine. Then I shut down. Reattached the external drive - booted up - everything's fine. So does it seem that the replacement drive from WD is bad as well? (I did not put the 2TB drive back in - but it was working fine before. Again - this drive was bought for when I get around to setting up a dual boot XP/Windows 7 drive - and until my family crisis - and multiple electronic/tech failures are resolved, I'm not going to tackle that one.) Don't know why it wouldn't boot from the original hard drive when the replacement second drive was installed. Any thoughts? since it does boot with the bad drive - although it mentions the hard drive problem and allows me to select F1 to continue. At least I'm up and running - and the main, original drive seems fine. (I have used Acronis - and did a back up and incremental over the summer. Then did a full clone in December when I thought the drive was failing. But I am still quite confused by the acronis instructions - and would like to start from scratch. Now I have a 2TB external drive and would like to make the proper kind of back up. How should I do this - as the words on some of instructions Raven often links use clone at one point but seem to be talking about a different kind of back up. One complication is that the original thread for acronis 2010 - with pics - is gone now and acronis 2011 instructions are more fleshed out). I have Acronis 2010. Thank you. Lynn.

Here are the instructions from the manual for my Dell: Using Dell PC Restore by Symantec. Use Dell PC Restore by Symantec only as the last method to restore your operating system. PC Restore restores your hard drive to the operating state it was in when you purchased the computer. Any programs or files added since you received your computerÂincluding data filesÂare permanently deleted from the hard drive. Data files include documents, spreadsheets, e-mail messages, digital photos, music files, and so on. If possible, back up all data before using PC Restore. NOTICE: Using PC Restore permanently deletes all data on the hard drive and removes any applications or drivers installed after you received your computer. If possible, back up the data before using PC Restore. To use PC Restore: 1 Turn on the computer. During the boot process, a blue bar with www.dell.com appears at the top of the screen. 2 Immediately upon seeing the blue bar, press (Ctrl)(F11). If you do not press (Ctrl)(F11) in time, let the computer finish restarting, and then restart the computer again. . NOTICE: If you do not want to proceed with PC Restore, click Reboot in the following step. 3 On the next screen that appears, click Restore. 4 On the next screen, click Confirm. The restore process takes approximately 6Â10 minutes to complete. 5 When prompted, click Finish to reboot the computer. NOTE: Do not manually shut down the computer. Click Finish and let the computer completely reboot. 6 When prompted, click Yes. The computer restarts. Because the computer is restored to its original operating state, the screens that appear, such as the End User License Agreement, are the same ones that appeared the first time the computer was turned on. 7 Click Next. The System Restore screen appears and the computer restarts. 8 After the computer restarts, click OK.

I am using DVD+R to reuse one I have, looking in my physical file I see I have 5 new ones that don't need to be erased. Still I wonder. I purchased these back in 2007, progress may have left them behind. The label is: DVD RW, DVD+R I should be able to read and write, hum, doesn't say erasable. The mfg is Memorex and proudly proclaims: Recordable, Enregistrable and Grabable the last two of which I have no clue to the meaning. I think I may have purchased them for use in a DVD audio/video recorder.. but that is digital too. I am pretty sure I can stick in my DVD player/recorder (not on the computer) and erase/overwrite..not sure I want to got to the trouble to check. Thanks for the link to third party DVD software. I'll look there but most likely will just use a new DVD. It lists a 4.7 GByte capacity. Does newer technology hold more? I think the Toshiba script talked about 4.7 GByte (may be the standard still) and two DVDs.

Well if you had success with Malwarebytes perhaps it is not necessary to run Superantispyware. If you would care to try then as you start the computer keep tapping the F8 button and a screen will appear with start up options. Select safe mode, everything will look totally different to the normal startup because only essential drivers have been allowed to start. My concern was the fact you mentioned AVG was not running properly. That is a good indicator of trouble. On reading the initial post a second time it appears you overcame that issue