I hate Windows ME my brother runs it and it's a POS. I have XP on my PC right now and I hate it aswell, cool features but not very practical, but I'm running Windows XP Pro. I'm thinking of going to Windows 2000 Server tommorow. Gotta love working for IT for your goverment, I can get any software pretty much.
And yes I definitly wouldn't have Kazaa open, that's alot of bandwidth, + your transfering your files (uploads/downloads) so your hard drive is working to write and read those files + read files for burning so that can not be a good mix. I would just leave your computer for the time it's burning and that should help. As for defrag that is a good idea, do a scandisk too. Do it while you sleep or if you go out for a day. If your computer is a Compaq it should of came with drivers or setup files on one of the cd's or you can check there website I'm sure.
§am.