Yes it was an intermittent hardware problem. I think I have finally resolved it by removing the ram and wiping dust off the gold contacts. I had previously vacuumed this machine not so long back, but never thought to remove ram and cards etc. when doing so. As soon as I reseated the ram the machine beeped and booted as it's meant to. Well spotted those who suggested hardware and ram problem etc.
The machine is now well into install mode again :-) Assuming it continues to do so my next question is around Dual Booting: I already have one new dedicated XP media centre edition computer that I record TV on and stuff like that so I would imagine it would be a hassle to have to reboot from one OS to the next etc. The other two I have are my previous computer and a family hand me-down, these are the ones I am putting Linux on. I was reading that you can get something called WINE that allows you to run some windows programs under Linux. Seeing as the sort of windows programs I would only want to run on those older machines are grandkids games like Dora the Explorer and educational stuff like Dangerous creatures etc. Is there any real need for me to bother with trying to do a dual boot system? I mean does this WINE thing work better with older programs like I mentioned or is it better suited to later stuff? Kind Regards Reg
