ok..soo...ill see if i can help ya a little.. need some clarification though.
did you do a complete format? yes notonce but 4x.
when you say you thought you had all the stuff to bring it back up..what do you mean? just the install cd? or did you make any backups of files? cd & back-up files
do/did you have a virus scanner? if not try
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ - they have an online virus scanner(for free) to make sure your clean. just do the virus scanner, from my experiences their security and spyware scanners are crap. yes ihave nod32
do/did you have an adware scanner?
http://www.lavasoft.com/ has a good free one as well..called adaware.
just download and install it, update the definition files, and do a full system scan(not nessicary if you just formatted, but it may have been what bogged down your system, the adware and such) its a good idea to have some adware/spyware protection and im not sure yet about this new windows feature..maybe someone can help me out with this. dont know if ME supports it either. go with lavasoft if not. have ad-aware and used it a lot
ill do a little more research on the matter, get back to me when the virus scan is done and lemme know if anything comes up...