Some of our ad partners use flash, of course, for animations and such. I'm sorry that bottom ad.is triggering it for you, when it's meant to be out of the way. A dying hard drive would definitely lock up that way, upon reading flash or some other program. I had that exact problem last year. When it's affordable to fix, I recommend newegg.com or amazon, as they can both net you a good terabyte hard drive for around fifty bucks.