I am useless with computers.

I've been having a lot of difficulty lately. The primary problem is that when I have more than one program running, at least one of them will freak out on me and freeze up, telling me that there isn't enough memory. I have about 11gb free, which seems to me that it ought to be plenty - but on the other hand, I have a 40gb harddrive and I can't figure out where the other 29gb are tied up (in reality, it's more like 37 total with 26 tied up). So I tried to run the defragment thingy but it told me that it couldn't run because there is an error on the disc. Now, due to the programs freezing up thingy, I often have to force a restart, and I usually let ScanDisc run, but I followed the prompt from Defrag and told it (ScanDisc) to run a Thorough check rather than the usual Standard.

So I leave ScanDisc running and go downstairs to drink some coffee. I come back upstairs to check on it, and there is an error message that reads:

ScanDisc has restarted 10 times because Windows or another program is writing to this drive. Quitting some running programs may enable ScanDisc to finish sooner.

And then there was a prompt to keep receiving this message (or not), which I clicked OK on. So ScanDisc tells me it's "Checking File Allocation Tables," then "Checking folders," and keeps restarting. The folder check never gets past two bars of progress before it goes back to the file allocation tables. There are absolutely no programs running, so it can only be Windows itself that is the problem. So what do I do here? Is there a way to run ScanDisc (thorough) before Windows starts?

And while I am at it, can anyone tell me why my very own computer would tell me that I am not allowed to copy my files to CD and should contact the Administrator? Last time I checked, that was me, useless though I may be. (Could the problem be that I have my computer password protected, so I am technically a sub-profile? I should check that, but it really seems nonsensical.)

I know that I should be calling Dell support with all these problems, but they've outsourced to Pakistan and I haven't gotten a single helpful suggestion from them since. I don't think it's worth being on hold for an hour and a half just to be told to use selective startup, no matter what the problem is. Useless fuckers. (Er, not all Pakistanis, just the ones answering the phones at Dell.)

*sigh* One of these days I'm going to follow through on that threat to start a collection for a Mac.