slow xp - slow pc - life is hell

What should I do! My pc has become damn slower. My interet explorer is crawling like anything. Nothing seems to move further and I waste endless hours sitting in front of my pc.

Whenever I open any folder on my system, it seems it just jams my system. The cpu led for harddisk access just gets lit up for endless time and the system becomes totally non-responsive.

What can be done with the slow xp system that always seems to crawl in this way all the time?