Tia

Thanks I couldn't see the facility to PM you so you could be right. Unfortunately Riley is on a (much delayed) plane to England and will not be online for 3 weeks!

Hi I'm the friend (Riley's!). Kind of Riley to get involved , thought I'd better see what she'd been up to! Thank you all for your advice - it has been truely illuminating. The PC World link was (obvious really!) the appropriate one but unfortunately having run system recovery several times on 'non-destructive' format it appears to go through the motions (takes 14 mins each time) but when I restart the pc it returns to the (original) error screen. I'm wondering whether to run the quick format to return it to factory settiings - my kids will kill me (this is basically their pc) as I'll lose all their stuff. Any more advice anybody? Perhaps you'd better PM me your phone no Corydoras.......