Computer's fixed now, turns out I had some sort of Virus.
After trial and error, and phoney diagnostics from Best Buy, I ended up having to buy a new hard drive, then I had to order the recovery disks for my computer from Hewlett Packard, wait for delivery, etc. This happening in the midst of college finals was killer- but all is well now, and the semester is over.
I'm going to make a thread in the near future addressing all gun issues, after I skim the forums for gun-related threads that I've missed over the past couple months. Right now I'm in the process of doing some animations for Cinco De Mayo guns, which may take longer than I'd like because I've got a sick daughter to take care of. Wish I was up and running two days ago, but better late than never.