Windows has its ups and downs, and so does Linux. Personally, I despised KDE. It took up too much memory and ran too damn slow. Try Gnome instead, it pretty much looks the same as KDE but doesn't suck away your resources. I've been using Windows XP since I got my new Dell back in February, and I can't remember a single instance where it's crashed on me. Buggy, yes? Horrible, not really. We still use Windows 98 at work, and I'm ready to murder someone because of it. I've also had no problem with my Dell hard drives, so you either got a very defective one, or you spilled something in it and aren't telling us. :)
But anyway, are your drives separate, or was Windows physically on a different drive? Because if you're using a partition, I'm sure you know that you can mount your Windows drive in Linux and get your shit back.
So Speaks The Gatekeeper...So It Shall Be!