Major Hanging Application Problems

Lately my computer has been acting up. I'll have windows media player up and leave it on while I go to class. When I come back and start playing music, the music plays for a second then stops (yet the numbers keep and bar keeps going). I"ll close the player but then it just hangs. I try and close it with Task Manager but nothing happens. At this time a bunch of other applications do the same thing. Eventually the programs do close down but when I try and open them again, nothing happens. Sometimes when I shut my system down it'll close things down but then hangs a blue screen. During start up, it takes forever to get from the boot screen to login. Any ideas of what could be wrong? I'd appreciate any help. I'm using Windows XP professional edition.

 

Another thing, when this happens my CD drive just shuts down. It won't open or play anything. My DVD drive still functions, however.

 

Anybody?