[glu]

I think I read here on the DUC someone's great point that you don't have your work backed up if it's not in 3 different places. Hey, even DVDs and CDs have a shelf life that shortens significantly if they are not stacked vertically. Any other ideas how to save your work and "preserve it" in another way?

It sounds like a hardware issue. I would make sure everything is backed up if it's not already. First thing I would think to do is check the space on my hard drive, things get sluggish on my computer if the hard drive is almost full. I would also think about anything I might have downloaded, software I installed, windows settings I tweaked, and if none of the above apply then I would probably think it is a hard drive issue. Maybe it starts spinning slower due to a defect in the motor? I am no techie there, but physically, it seems logical.