Woohoo!

I've done it. Did a complete system wipe on the laptop's hard drive, so it now thinks it's shiny and new and until now unused, all over again. Which means all the little buggy things that have been driving me murderous with rage up the wall somewhat are now FIXED.

Just waiting for the last of my backup files to copy over from the HD, and then I can set about re-installing everything.

Yay me ;)