This may be a crazy question, but here goes...

My brother suggested that I could somehow use either a Ubuntu Live Boot CD or Flash drive or Kubuntu as a way to diagnose issues I'm currently having with my laptop. I'm running Windows 7 and for some reason my laptop has suddenly started freezing during Windows start up. This started immediately after I began seeing the hard drive light remaining on and my computer running very, very slowly - even though when I checked Task Manager it said that no applications or unusual processes were running at the time and CPU usage was 0%. Strange, I know.

I've used the Restore disks 3 times already, thinking maybe it was a virus, even though I run Norton 360 and it found nothing upon a full system scan. But every time I end up with Windows failing to start up at all, or it getting stuck on the "Windows Starting" screen for at least 15-20 minutes before it starts.

I'm at a total loss here. I'm thinking it is either a Hard drive issue or perhaps a RAM issue, but I am a total moron when it comes to the operational aspect of computers. I don't know where to begin. My brother said that if I used a flash drive of Ubuntu or Kubuntu and tried to boot from there that I would know immediately if it was my Hard drive because it wouldn't operate. I don't understand that since it wouldn't be operating off my hard drive, it would be running from the CD/flash drive.

Does anyone have any clues on what I can do to check this out? I'm tempted to buy a new hard drive and RAM, but would hate to buy something I can't return if they aren't the issue.

I'm stuck...any help would be very appreciated. Thanks so much and have a wonderful weekend.


Question: Quicklook is broken in Lion
Answer: You might see a message in the console like this:

com.apple.quicklook.32bit[22808]): Job appears to have crashed: Abort trap: 6 


You should file as bneely says.

Have you tried the usual stuff of repairing permissions, restarting etc.

Also, if you file a report, you should include your system.log (/var/log) and Apple System Profile report (About this Mac > More Info > System Report > save....)