Thanks, I'll give that a go. Haven't used the safe mode yet - is it easy to go back to the normal setting afterwards? (Yeh, I know I'm a complete novice when it comes to that kind of stuff!)

Husband recently got an ipod and has started downloading stuff and all that entails and then, strangely enough round about the time I've been having problems I think, he got a techy machine for reading his sugar levels and inputting data re his diabetes and he was having probs getting that to work. As far as I know the stuff he downloaded is still on computer and I wonder if it's that which is causing the probs. Hmm....

Will get back and let you know..