I get the spinning beachball.......

Hello,

Very Important, how much Free Space is on your Hard Drive first of all? Click on the Macintosh HD on the Desktop, then do a Get Info on it.

"Try Disk Utility

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.

2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu at the top of the screen. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)

Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.

3. Click the First Aid tab.

4. Select your Mac OS X volume.

5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.

(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)

Is your printer properly setup in System Preferences/Print.

It may help to delete and then reselect the printer in the preferences.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1800

Very little chance, in fact if the Disk has problems that need fixing, it could save your data from getting lost, only exception might be a HW problem like bad RAM, that could make it worse, but bad RAM could do that just trying to boot up.

Open Console in Applications>Utilities, watch for clues as you get a BBOD trying to open Fax & Print, post them here.

Unplug the Printer (disconnect from the tower).

Does the condition improve?

Brings up an important troubleshooting point; disconnect ALL but mouse, keyboard and monitor while troubleshooting.

Once the machine is stable in that configuration, add one additional device at a time.

BTW, in System Profiler/Hardware/Diagnostics, are there any failed POST notations? Failed Memory/RAM notations?

Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), use Disk Utility from there to Repair Permissions, test if things work OK in Safe Mode.

Then move these files to the Desktop...

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist

Reboot & test.

PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.

Did it still Beach ball in Safe Mode?

Open Console & check the system log for the Time/Date of the last BBOD.

The other drive could be a problem.

Hard to say what to look for in Console & system log until we find it, but not the Date/Time of the BBOD, the log should be Date/Time stamped & we look for that. Sometimes it'll be repeated messages, or it might say failed, or something else.

Also, open Activity Monitor, Show: All Processes, sort on CPU%, any clues when the BBOD happens?

Hmmm, I think I'd uninstall VPC & see what happens.