@spearhead what exactly was the problem?
Anyway can you post the model number or the hardware specs.
you can do a free scan of your hardware here
http://driveragent.com

Most probably your problem was because your pc uses sata hard drive
and windows xp cannot find the hard disk. To solve it you need to go to
your bios settings and change the drive mode to IDE or ATA or something like that.
Just play around.