'Puter update. The data drives are definitely fine. The system drive had a bunch of bad sectors. After running chkdsk a bunch of times with the drive mounted in a different machine, it seemed to be OK, so I put everything back in the original computer and it booted successfully!!

Once!

During that time, the machine was very sluggish. When I tried to reboot, Windows told me it needed to be repaired. So I'm giving up on this drive. I'll get a new one and reinstall Windows and my programs from scratch. At least I know now exactly where things stand. Yay?

Heeeellllp. I am going to bite the bullet and purchase a netbook, probably this week. (Hello, Black Friday sales!) The catch is I have no idea what I should get. I would like something in the mid-range of power, and preferably pre-loaded with Windows 7. (Is that even possible? I have no clue.)

I would primarily be using the netbook to wirelessly connect to a corporate network, and then remote to my work desktop. Anyone have any suggestions?

Well, the 1000HA and it's replacements are pretty solid, but none of the Asus netbooks appear to be availabe with Windows 7, yet.

Windows 7 full bore on a Netbook might be a while, yet.

Steph, I have an 8g iTouch (bought new in August)

I am quite happy with it -- connecting with Wifi to get online, check emails, watch YouTube is easy when you live in a city, video quality is better than our TV. I use it as an eReader through my fictionwise account (but Barnes and Noble has one -- there are a few), bought a phone and wall charger, and watched 4 episodes of True Blood on a recent trip from KC to Minneapolis.

I've got Pandora, but I almost like Genius enough to get rid of it. It's really wonderful. I download podcasts (and some podcast are really free audio books, especially if you're into classics -- check out Lit2Go in iTunes U)

LOVE LOVE LOVE. And then I just use my crappy little Nokia for phone calls and a few texts every now and then.

There are a number of netbooks available with Windows 7 Starter Edition actually. I did a quick search on Best Buy's website and they show 40 different models for sale with Windows 7 at the moment.

Jilli, my recommendation would be to go down to something like Best Buy this week and try out a bunch of the models and their keyboards and trackpads. I've got an early model of Asus and while it is a nice little machine the trackpad and mouse buttons on my model sucks monkey balls. I've played the some of the HP models and prefer the keyboard and trackpads and those quite a bit more.

I have a HP1030 and I really like it. (It runs XP.) My main complaint is that the connections for the AC plug do not fit into the computer snugly, and the plug is constantly falling out, or loosening enough to not be drawing power from the cord. This is my second plug, as the prong snapped in half on my first plug when it was dropped, and they were both like this. The webcam is also pretty useless unless you are in brightly lit places. The keyboard and the trackpad are great.

I use mine exclusively for websurfing, so I can't really speak to how it runs other applications.

Lenovo Ideapad S10-2 review.

Bonus: Comes in pink!

Steph, I have an 8g iTouch (bought new in August)

I am quite happy with it -- connecting with Wifi to get online, check emails, watch YouTube is easy when you live in a city, video quality is better than our TV.

Okay, you folks have convinced me (or confirmed my decision)! I have to go for the 32g one, though, because I'm going to want to keep photos, etc. on it in addition to music and such.

How limited is the Windows 7 Starter Edition (compared to, say, XP Home, and on a netbook does it really matter)? I've been thinking about a Black Friday netbook myself.

Steph, I have the 32G one. If you go lower than that, you lose some functionality with the Touch. I was trying to decide between the 32G and the 64G. The 32G is nice and light, so I'm glad I got that one.