Today when I booted my Gateway Win XP Pro (SP1) desktop, it first ran
through checkdisk and displayed some messages about corrupt files in
boot--something (?).  It went through all 3 stages, and it also looked
like a half-dozen .jpg images were listed.  Then it booted up normally.  
Once in Windows, I went to C Drive/Tools/Check the Volume for Errors...
and it came up fine.  The system is 3 years old and came with a Western
Digital 80GB drive.  A few days ago, when a thunderstorm rolled through,
the monitor flickered once before I could shut it down.  I have a Belkin
surge protector and UPS.  Everything was fine later, except a networked
printer (not a print server) on another computer wouldn't print from this
machine, and I had to delete the printer and Add a Printer again to get
it to work again.  Also, when I go to Start/Help and Support, nothing
comes up.  Otherwise, my computer is running fine. I do regular data
backups onto CD's.

Is it possible the slight surge (or brownout) affected a few image files
on the hard drive a few days later...or is the drive giving a signal
that there may be problems in the future?

If so, maybe it's time to install Acronis 8 and copy a drive image to my
new 250 MB Maxtor external hard drive.

Should I get busy?

Thanks!
Scott