OK, sorted, kinda Worked out that the OEM disk I had contained an image of my system in the vista.wim file. I used imagex to apply that wim to a second partition. I had to copy the \boot folder and the bootmgr to c: and use easybcd to install the vista bootloader. When I rebooted, I chose Vista from the boot menu and it ran first time setup. This halted with a message saying this image of windows would only work if installed on the c partition, w*****s!!! Sooooo, starting from scratch, I'm going to install XP to d: and then apply the vista image to c: Then, finally, I can install Ubuntu! As an aside, if anyone has a laptop built on the Quanta TW3M chassis (mine is a Philips X58, but there are many out there), finding xp drivers took me about 48hrs research (ubuntu livecd worked perfectly! what a f***ed up windows world) They are available from the intel site under whitebook laptops/TW3M(including the conexant soft sound/modem drivers). I don't think google finds it. If you are that other person with a Philips X58 and can't find them, post and I'll give you the link. By default, my laptop didn't have AHCI enabled and was running in compatibility mode. I can confirm that XP, Vista and Ubuntu(gutsy 7.10) all work with AHCI enabled, so I would enable it in the bios before installing anything (of course you will need f6 drivers unless you've slipstreamed storage drivers and sp2 into your XP CD. Sorry for the ramble, but I can't get that time back from pcworld/philips so if I can help anyone else ;p