I've still got the beast, waiting for a couple of disks promised, but I have some doubts about the integrity of the whole machine. There seem to be power issues (the power cycles off and on sometimes all on its own
) and the HDD makes an unusual 'fluttery' noise sometimes.
I am beginning to wonder if the 'slow down' in the SP2 phase 3 update could have been caused by the power supply.
Anyway a couple of days more to see if I can repair the Vista installation (it will boot from CD) and if not back, to owner for decision time. I did manage in one of the 'good moments' to run CHKDSK which 'fixed' some 'security thingie' during its !30 minutes! and I did get off the docs and pst as I said, so all not lost.