Griff, your USB drive showing up although not connected is really not odd at all. These "fantom drives" tend to happen when legacy USB is enabled in bios as it allows the drives to become active b4 the OS starts.
What I think I'd like to see u do is to go back to disk manager, highlight your dvd drive, click the actions menu, then all tasks, then change drive letters & paths, & assign it to drive d:. Then we can see if those disk errors on disk0\d continue. If not, then for whatever reason the computer was trying to access something it thought was there but which really wasn't, thus creating the error. If we now get disk errors on disk0\c, then we really do have to consider hard drive or mobo controller problems. I rather suspect the latter is not the case but we still have to consider the possibility that a hard drive failure or controller problem could be causing your freezes. But since the disk errors in the system log seemed not to coincide w/the winamp errors, my suspicion is that changing the drive letter of your dvd will eliminate them.
So, let's have u fix your winamp database & change your dvd drive to d: & see how we go.
I do suggest also that u consider looking at your motherboard manual, or even calling their tech support to find out whether text-based drives are really needed. I used them when building hubby's computer the 1st time, but when it crashed, I called EVGA tech support, & they assured me they weren't needed unless raid was enabled in bios, &, indeed, the machine seems to be far more stable now w/o them. So this is really something worth considering, though another repartition/reformat/reinstall cycle is very likely somethin u would prefer to live without right now. Still, if it provides more stability, then it truly might be worth the hassle to configure the machine correctly. If u do decide that is the way to go, & your mobo does indeed not require text-based drivers unless u have raid enabled, then u might do well to turn off legacy USB in bios, reinstall windows so that drive letters are assigned correctly, then go back & re-enable legacy USB in bios once windows is back up.
Lastly, I have a motto, it's bbb, which stands for being blind bites, or, according to my preacher husband, being blind's a b-word (the pastoral version). But I get along ok, & there are a lot of folks far worse off, so I don't complain. It does irritate me when it inconveniences some1, like w/your situation, but most folks like yourself are really nice about it & accommodate those generally small things I ask for very willingly, of which I'm very appreciative. Computers have expanded the horizons of all disabled people significantly, allowing us to do things like read independently, control the household environment for those who are parallyzed, & can literally speak for those who cannot, thus allowing the disabled to do things that were impossible before their advent. & being blind doesn't really prevent me from helping folks on this forum, except for those small changes I have to sometimes ask folks to make to accommodate it.
I'll post regarding your hjt log when I see it.
Ok, next time, I will re log this damn thing...