One of those" thank goodness" moments.

I had tried everything I knew to no avail.

I then resorted to what I should have done in the first place, hindsight, eh?
I did a XP ( should that be an XP , like an hotel...?) rescue install.

BINGO !

Problem fixed. PC still acting a bit slow and glitchy but that is a basic housekeeping problem (overloading the poor thing).

I burnt a knoppix linux rescue boot disk in case of emergencies and backed up all relevant data (photos applications etc) stored on the C drive onto another separate physical drive. Shoulda done this before.

Tongiht I try to resurrect the interent capability. Fingers crossed.

Oh, I have posted more photos , go see........