Just takeing the box out of it's "hole in the wall" and setting it up on my work bench.. and will follow throught once I have done this.. used to copy the CD to the hdd in win98 just to avoid many of these probs.. will try that and the live linux cd when I do that....

Will be back and post the results..in about a hour or so..

cheers

[edit]
this edit on the sick machine.. currently running PHLACK linux.. uptime 1hr. next step to copy the i386 folder to a spare partition on the HDD.. and see the results.. [/edit]

Oh and Morphix Live Cd.. **** now that is a windows users linux.. the samba is one of the easiest to get going.. it was there all shares were found.... just have to automate the SMB passwords... purfect.... If i can't find an answer to this problem............................................................. I teach one wife to use one of the linux distro's ....Morphix.....