I did indeed find much on that solution, but it applies only to AMD systems. The Thinkpad uses an Intel CPU.
The blog does however contain other solutions, but I can't run any of them. Safe Mode doesn't work, and the recovery console needs an XP CD which I don't have - these don't come with laptops these days.
I am happily copying the data off the HD (8GB of it) to a networked computer as I write this, but I can't see any way of getting back to the original working laptop, because all the apps load stuff into the registry etc and that will all be lost.
It looks like getting hold of an XP CD and using the recovery console and uninstall SP3 will be the best way...
Last edited by IO540; 3rd December 2008 at 14:02.