Invalid Drive L:\???

[setishock]

It's a resource hog. It also is a part of the printer driver package. Excess baggage. It can be removed from add/remove programs in the control panel. You can always put it back with a simple download or from the HP recovery manager located in the start menu. It sounds like to me you have some file degradation. There's more than one thing that's wrong.
Run a check disc to find out if you have any damaged to the file system. If your drive suffered any sort of blunt force trauma, it may have scuffed the platter.

 

[Plaid.exe]

righteous, I'll try removing it that way, thanks!
scan disk is missing from my computer, so I can't do that, unless you mean something else by "disk check"...
if the hard disk is scuffed, would that result in my pc from lagging in common tasks like pulling up the start menu? it always takes a second to remember what's in there...
anyway thanks again, hopefully removing the 'solition center' will help me.