The failures were numerous. The cd of winxp home and the hard disk itself
were put into another machine. Installation was fine. Old hard drive was
fitted to a laptop via a usb2.0 adapter lead. That is registering as only 4
gig. I have suggested he run all the norton systemworks diagnostic tests he
can. He says he has an old dos program that will test ram as i stated you
guys suggested that as the cause. Just to be sure i have also disconnected
the primary cd rom drive and will be using the cd writer drive. I have
configured that to master via the correct jumper. Going to format the
replacement drive into one continous 160gb. It has been formatted several
times with only the first 40gb and the remaining unformatted.