Wow Cheers for the fast responses Ollie and MartyBartfast.
The 1st couple of issues with the Laptop was its increadibly Slooooow speed
Tried a windows de-frag, but the drive had 1% space free.
(1 Gig of temp internet files and all his data on the puny C: drive.
I dont think its been cleared or backed up since I last did it over a year ago!)
So I backed up his docs + transferred them to the empty D: partition.
But I need to stress how painfully slow this Lappys (not-going).
Anyway it locked up again (for the 6th time that day). I had to do a hard reset.
After a fs check by windows, said there were a few corrupted files and then booted as normal. Thats when XP decided to deny all knowledge of explorer...Aaarrgghhh.
My main issue is now going to be, can I retrieve the XP key from the laptop, as I wont be able to re-use mine. When I do the repair-re-install?
@ MartyBartfast =
I understand this is a Linux forum, and I've also posted on a PC forum too.
But I just thought I would chance my hand. (But I dont wanna annoy anyone
or outstay my welcome. Just thought I'd try).
But a big thanks to you both for all of your help.
Cheers lads.