"Have you got an external floppy?"
I wish I did. It's a top-notch suggestion and one that would solve all my problems, for sure. But, as is usual, most of my favourite s/w is now useless since the advent of these so-called modern machines. When floppy drives were king it was easy to get our PCs to sing. Then I had to upgrade just to keep pace with things. And that meant that the dear old FDD soon became obsolete.... along with my camera... my internet dial-up modem... my printer... etc, etc.
As it stands, Ive just relieved my nephew of his external HDD, so will try your suggestion from there.
Thanks a million for dropping in with some sage advice.
Same goes to Mssrs Warspite and Long build - thanks for your suggestions also. For what it's worth, I spent most all afternoon on that 'How-to' link sent by Long Build. I followed the intructions to the letter, but still no luck -- the XP disc still cannot get past that blue warning screen. I'm not sure what Kill Disk is. I'll do a quick Google search, try and download a version and try that if I get no luck with the external HDD.
Thanks once again, gents. All your advice greatly appreciated.
Message for CBR Roy from Oz:
Mate, believe it or not, but it seems that my PMs are working again. Yours came in earlier today and was able to download the s/w which you suggested. And guess what?... still no joy. Ares P2P turned out to be nothing like you described -- it's more of a sharing MP3 files sort of thing. Unless, of course, that I downloaded the wrong thing. Same thing goes for the Ultimate Vista Lite. All I got was an ISO image, which was duly burnt to a DVD, but even that didn't work.
Thanks just the same though. Really appreciate you taking the time to bung a PM my way in with your suggestions.