The new hard drive is on order.
Just as an update, of which I'm not sure what to think now. I'm begining to think it may be a motherboard problem.
Last night I had some time to try and play with the thing, and I must say that I'm about ready to stick a boot right through the thing (I know it won't do any good and that is the only reason I haven't done it).
For some reason I can't get a DOS prompt at start up, it is usually an option after selecting F8, but no, I only get the options for normal, logged, safe and step by step. The computer is locked in some form of vicious cycle, windows has tried to install and has now got to the point where it is checking the onboard hardware (last step before completion and it gets to 15 minutes remaining and the system still locks (freezes) then it boots up and goes back into the checking for hardware stage of windows install. I've tried putting a boot disk in but that just gets to the same place. Safe mode is useless as the computer hasn't found all of my hardware yet and I've never really found it any use anyway.
During all of the attempts to install windows again I had removed a stick of memory which seemed to help, but then the problems continued, so I put it back in a different slot and there is no real change (the memory I bought from the same place that I bought the computer from and installed it back in December (PC2700, 256Mb). I removed my TV card as it doesn't get much use. Is it possible that the hard drive is still causing the problem? or is it seeming like some other component is at fault?
Does anyone know how I can get the DOS prompt? For the moment I'm following through with the hard drive and after that I hope it'll be fine, but any other thoughts for me to think about for the future? (Outside of changing to XP, reading up on the XP thread I can't really justify spending that sort of money on the full version over the OEM, maybe a future purchase though)
Cheers and thanks again for the continued help,
Regards,
J.