A footnote, although the Vista laptop has long gone ('condemned' by a Computer repair shop....), again thanks for the (ongoing) help I have received from all.
I thought I would let all know about what appears to be an excellent W boot disk which actually runs a mini-XP on a Dos booted system as well! It is called 'Hiron's Boot Disk' and Google will locate it. Easy to make iso and burns easily to CD at 190kb 'ish. I'm waiting now for a few USB sticks to appear here 'cos Hiron also offers boot from USB stick...................................
I could not see it in the 'sticky' so I have added it.