I wasnt quite sure whether this should go into hardware or operating systems but here it is. It seems suitable in both!
Basically I have acquired a Packard Bell Easynote MV-35 notebook. When I powered the thing up it immediately went into the Packard Bell recovery procedure. It then says "please wait" and does absolutely nothing for as long as you leave it. So I dig out the Windows XP Media Center disc and boot from it with the intention of using the recovery console.
Just before the licence agreement appears it says "setup is starting Windows" and once again nothing happens. It appears to hang and for as long as you leave it. I know this is not normal and the licence agreement with the option to press F8 should usually appear within at least 10 seconds.
So I turn the notebook off and remove the hdd and connect it to another PC in a USB enclosure. It reads the backup partition but the system partition appears as unreadable in disk management.
So I try and format it with Windows Explorer and nothing happens. I then try format the drive via a command prompt. I get no luck and then I attempt with Partition Magic and that gives me an error that the partition table is bad.
So I conclude that I need a new drive. I acquire the new drive put it in the notebook and run the Windows setup again. It gets to "setup is starting Windows" and hangs again!
I suspected the memory and currently have the notebook running memtest. Its been on about an hour but not found any errors on the ram.
Im pretty sure the original hdd is faulty but there seems to be something else wrong!
Im at a loss! Any techies got any ideas!?! Because Im all out of them!
Edit: Ok changed the ram and still have the same problem so that rules that out. I have also burnt two copies of XP Media Centre and tried XP Pro! I have also reset the bios defaults as I thought something in the settings might be causing it. And now I am baffled.
Where is $en$i when you need him!? 
May the NFOrce be with you always.
