MadMonkey: that exact thing happened to a friend of mine 2 months ago, he had it diagnosed and it was the HDD. He ended up buying a new laptop as this was the cheaper option
I am having a lot of problems with software and I suspect it is to do with Vista.
For example, we have Scrapbook Deluxe that installs on our XP PC downstairs but on our new laptop running Vista, it wont even recognize the CD to even attempt an installation
Does this sound like a Vista problem or does it sound more like a CD Rom drive problem?