On Jul 31, 8:35 pm, Paul wrote:
A proper hardware diagnostic test program would be nice, but I presume
one of those would cost money. I've never owned a program like that
for the PC, but have used them for other platforms.

If anyone can recommend one that boots without graphics or HD, I'd
certainly check it out. BartPE tries to load XP first, and that's the
part that's failing.

The distro I use for this is Knoppix, from Knopper.net . (I prefer Knoppix,
as Ubuntu doesn't print the useful info during the boot sequence.)

I always have a backup PC available, which I've fallen back on during
this time of sorrow. I just ordered a DVD burner for it today. I'll
download Knoppix.