Dreamweaver 8 trouble: Is it my laptop that is dying or my external hard drive?

Question

Hello all.
Beginning yesterday, I have not been able to successfully
open files in DW8 on my laptop. I use the Files menu, the one at
the lower right corner of the screen below the CSS menu. When I
click on the file, nothing happens. So I click again and I get an
error message:
Title: rundll32.exe
Message content: The instruction at "0x7c910f29" referenced
memory at "0x00000000", The memory could not be "read".
Here's why I think it's my laptop:
When I use the File menu at the top, left of the screen...DW8
opens every file I ask it to without fault.
Data: I own (the last of this brand that I will ever own) a
2-year-old Dell XPS laptop (bought new, mind you). I have been
warned by friends that the motherboards in this brand has a
tendency to degrade. My friends are professionals who fix computers
for a living. This isn't a rip on the manufacturer. I really need
to know because this is going to necessitate buying a new machine
at a time in which I can not afford to do so. Lately this machine
has been doing funny things, but I need to know from the experts
here if anyone knows the possible root of this problem. I use an
external Seagate 160MB USB hard drive which has served me
flawlessly for almost 2 years.
So...is it my high-dollar laptop, Windows XP or some Freak Of
Nature that is providing me with this nonsense?
Please help...
Many thanks!!!
Sincerely,
Wordman
PS - Other than this, I have enjoyed a continued learning
experience with web design and to date all my XHTML and CSS pass
the W3C validator...which thrills me no end.

Answer 1

<ahem>Lenovo</ahem>
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
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"PeteC" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:g4gpj6$hrm$[email protected]..
> Wordman-GL wrote:
>> Desktop, video card and monitor recommendations?
>> Laptop vendor recommendations?
>
> It's worth researching laptops - there aren't actually
that many companies
> that make their own from scratch (only IBM, Acer,
Toshiba, Twinhead and
> Apple - but Apple and Toshiba also buy in ODM), but
myriads of
> 'manufacturers' who rebadge ODM(Original Design
Manufacturers) machines -
> and Dell is one of these. Every Dell laptop product line
- Inspiron,
> Latitude, XPS, Precision - comes from a different
manufacturer.
>
> Google for Compal, Clevo, Kapok, Quanta, Mitech, FIC and
Twinhead (all
> ODMs, not all make laptops for Dell)
>
> This difference in manufacturer follows into reliability
- if Compal
> produce a substandard Dell Inspiron, that's not likely
to affect the Dell
> Latitude line manufactured by Quanta.
>
> Regards,
>
> Pete.
> --
> Peter Connolly
>
http://www.kpdirection.com
> Utah
>