Hi linney,
Thanks for your help. I will try what you suggest. I decided to format drive because on start up my pc gave error message ntfs.sys was corrupt and then closed down and then went into start up close down loop.
I tried to repair using windows xp disc but it would not repair "unable to copy file wmploc.dll and rundll32.exe" so I skipped these files then BSOD "Page fault in non paged area". I tried repair again, this time unable to find system32/drivers/ntfs.sys.
I tried to run recovery console to load new ntfs.sys but unable to load as recovery failed "dac2w2k.sys is corrupted. I tried to reinstall over top, but this wouldn't work either so I repartioned and reformatted drive, removed wireless network card in case this was causing problems, checked all connections, noted memory test on boot up was OK, and then tried to reinstall windows. Error message " setupdd.sys could not be loaded Error 7".
I tried another XP pro CD - same problem. I booted into DOS with CD Rom support using Me disc. I tried to install by running winnt.exe -got message smartdrive not installed - I skipped this as I did not know where to find it. Set up got as far as copying windows files - but after 2 hours nothing happened. At this point I had enough and went to bed!