Hi David i don't have any exact ideas about your problem...

wel this is a well know probleme ..... tho reduse the price of a pc thy dont make a retrail cd , but they make a hidden partition on you hd , who cannot be deleted ....what ever you do , so find that part on the hd ,and you wil have a recovery cd , good luck

I had nothing but grief with trying to install clean Windows systems, till I tried pulling the battery for half an hour, then formating with a W98 install CD.. then install the new OS, formating it again to NT... This way cleans-out all traces of microsoft's NT security holds and messes in the machine... Then I install everything from CDs and flash drives, with the tower disconnected from the Net during the whole install, then I install Sun belt free firewall from a flash, and set it to ask on everything... I disable all the auto updaters, and the shares, and networks stuff, to update later manually what needs updating... Only then do I connect it to the Net through a hard-wired router, using Sunbelt to fully block everything IE & OE... I get everything I need from other than microsoft sites... Too many times microsoft updates wrecked my installs on PC's I was working on for clients... Seems if my IP and particulars doesn't match the computer's registered IP and particulars, the microsoft system gives me faulty updates, which destroys the install... I just boycott the microsoft bully alltogether... But this route, you need an install CD... I wouldn't buy a PC that didn't come with a proper full systems install CD... That's BS selling PC's with out an install CD... There are so many things that kill OS's, and you really do need that option... Change to Linux... Kick the microsoft bully out of your life... They're probably going bankrupt in 15 to 20 years anyway... Surf Linux... Linux is all free, and bug-free... There aren't any bullies in Linux.. just good people sharing with people...

In all my Windows PC's I run: SeaMonkey, Cacheman Memory Restore, CCleaner, EasyCleaner, RegScrub, An old McAfee Uninstaller for its power-clean, Spybot S&D, Sunbelt, and BitDefender... It works for me...

Plus, tidy up those wires... AC wires crossing data wires can cause all kinds of problems...

I've had Enough! grief with XP and Vista... I switched back to W2000... It doesn't look and run like someone insane created it...

I may prefer you to try to do a system restore. That may help you for this problem.