Well everyone, with reference to my spotlight problem, I tried everything suggested. I did as requested, set the drive to exclude then removed it from that option and indeed it started to reindex everything. It took all day and night but this morning when I opened spotlight the problem persists. I even tried to look for a specific file that I know exists and it could not find it.
Another issue with spotlight is if I select it and it is on the screen and then decide not to use it it disappears, fine, but then when I select it again it appears randomly off to the top with only a small portion showing and you can't select it to move it on to the screen. The only way to get it actually back is to keep selecting it and eventually will show up on the screen. So strange. Thank you everyone for your help. 
[Edited by Moderator]