thanks i will try that in a bit. right now i am backing up all my work and
files onto an external drive just in case i throw the computer off my
balcony. I spoke with hp support at length today, they seem to think its a
problem with my hard drive. It may well be but i am suspicious of this
because i CAN get into hps Recovery system (as i stated earlier) from the
recovery system i can backup my files to a drive. I cannot do the restore
because of the drive encryption but i can backup my files.

i will let you know the results of test as soon as i am done backing up
these files.
thanks again for the help,
mcm