I've been gone about 6 hours and when I got back the laptop was off. No other problems besides the ati driver, the system being slow and internet video only showing a frame every 5 or 12 seconds.
I figured out I can always make the ati driver give me an error by closing the laptop while it is on, let it hibernate or whatever then log back on. Everytime that will give me the ati driver message. As a matter of fact my worst problems started after closing my laptop while it was on. Also before that I used msconfig to remove some things, yahoo and msn messanger and a couple other things from my startup then everytime I booted I'd get some message saying I should reboot after turning the machine off and back on but I don't remember if it was something I did to stop it or it quit on its own. I can't think of anything else. Hope that helps a little.
I should be able to clean up a couple of gigs or so and I'll follow your instructions and let you know how it goes.
Thanks,
teajay