Ijust started a new job and was assigned the bosses old HP laptop with XP.

Before turning the PC over to me, I watched him using the machine, He had so many windows open, it was amazing the PC didnt crash. I even commented about the performance, he said he never had any problems whatsoever.

About an hour before he turned the pc over to me, he started deleting files and apps. as fast as he could type ( we were on a plane and I saw him doing this myself.

The first time I tried to use the computer, it took about 7 minutes just to boot up, every app. I try to run is either super slow or locks up altogether. I even bought a couple of thumb drives to transfer files from my new machine to my home pc, but even the thumbs only are usable intermittently. I can see them through the device manager but I cant access them to move files.

Not sure what to do, I've already defraged with no improvement. I'm afraid to download "cleaning" software from the internet or to use other utilities due to the amount of extremely important data, files and apps.
I cant risk blowing the hard drive clean, especially because I'm new to this company. The home office is in Boston and I'm in Detroit.

Any suggestions how I might be able to correct this problem? Is there something I can do myself without doing any further damage?

Help, this is probably the best job I've ever had and I dont want to jeopardize my position,especially right now. 

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