Let me clarify a little before this thread get's of topic. I'm not saying that it is definatly an MBR problem, only that if it is caused by some form of residual data thats left over from a previous installation (Which is possible, but not that likely), it would then be most certainly related to the MBR. As far as i'm aware this would be the only place that data could survive a format. That is assuming the computer was completely cold booted to negate any data in RAM, and nothing non-factory was in any removable media (like a floppy).