[koolbluez]

The Lords hast decreed to hold counsel with thou, Warrior! Thy predicament is a blasphemous reminder of the fickle hand of Elektron! The trail commences...

First...
u sure this kinda thing happened after the power cuts.

Me thinks XP on a 128mb RAM might run slow anyway(as I got another comp which goes to standstill on XP and having similar confg. to urs)

Scandisk first (although this should have already happened when u restarted the computer...
Right-click any drive ("c" first) ->chose option "properties".
Click on tab "tools".. under error-checking, click on button "check now"
Tick both checkdisk options ->OK... stand back... actually lay back. It'll take lotsa time. Repeat process for other drives (d..e..)

Defragment ur drives..
Rightclick drive->"properties"->"tools" tab->under defragmentation, click on button "defragment now"
Defrag all ur drives... that'll also take lotsa time.

Me thinks this "hanging"'ll happen when u do a particular operation.. like running Media Player or something else. Pin-point the exact operation which causes this problem and then come back with ur question. Or something in the start-up is screwing ur computer.

First.. check out ur Windows Left-Bottom "start" button->All programs->StartUp for entities. If there are some programs in it, delete them (rightclick on program and delete).
Else... this is a little risky for u... Start->Run... type "msconfig" without the doublequotes
This opens the "sytem configuration utility".
Select "Startup" tab and de-tickmark all entries (except maybe the antivirus/firewall"). If it continues, Try deselecting all entries incl. antivirus/firewall and then save restart computer. If ur probs gone, Me.Antivirus/Firewall is responsible for the hang.

Try the time-proved "trail & error" method to find ur baby's "killer" and kill him before he kills ur baby

I still say either ur low RAM or some rouge software (corrupted heavy antivirus, some silly microsoft product...) is guilty here