Hi. Thanks for your suggestions. 1. The last thing that I see before it hangs is: a. when trying bootup into the DOS prompt, a list of drivers, stopping at atisgkaf.sys b. when trying to boot using the Toshiba recovery disk, it installs the Toshiba ghost files then states "Recovery of pre-installed software is completed...". However, on trying to start Windows normally it hung and on trying to start Windows using the last known good configuration it reported that "Windows could not start normally because the following file is missing or corrupt: "\windows\system32\config\system" and that I can attempt to repair the file by starting the Windows Setup using the original CD ROM and select R to Repair. c. when trying to reinstall XP, it loads drivers etc then hangs with "Windows Setup" displayed in the top left hand corner of the screen and the message "Setup is starting Windows" is displayed at the bottom left of the screen and the system hangs. 2. Re. chkdsk, I ran it without parameters but this version (provided with NTFS4DOS) reported that it was using \windows\system32\autochk.exe. The log file left behind indicates that fixes were written to the disk: --------------- Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive. Cleaning up 59 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9. Cleaning up 59 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9. Cleaning up 59 unused security descriptors. ... A disk check has been scheduled. Windows will now check the disk. Index entry ntbtlog.txt of index $I30 in file 0x2f70 points to unused file 0x1723. Deleting index entry ntbtlog.txt in index $I30 of file 12144. Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive. CHKDSK is recovering lost files. Recovering orphaned file pagefile.sys (5890) into directory file 5. The security data stream entry at offset 0x8c20 does not fit into the remaining length, 0x80, of a page. The minimum value is 0x310. Repairing the security file record segment. Replacing invalid security id with default security id for file 5890. Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute. Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap. Windows has made corrections to the file system. --------------- 3. I have confirmed that the NTFS Partition is Primary and Active. 4. I downloaded Registry Viewer to check the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices entry in the registry but it responded that it could not open file. I then found that system.dat and data.dat are missing and that there is a folder in C: called SYSPREP. Maybe the registry has been nuked at some stage of the process. I wonder if the system is in limbo after a failed Recovery from the Toshiba disk and my attempt to reinstall the XP Pro OS. (I am aware that there can be issues if you mix a standard Windows install with an OEM one but I had previously upgraded the Toshiba version to XP Pro without problems.)