Re: Installing retail versions - I know it SHOULD work. But it doesn't. That's what's making me so crazy. It simply won't boot after installing the new software. Which makes me think that there must be something in the BIOS expecting a boot partition of a specific size or something... I blew away whatever partitions and non-ROM elements may have existed on the HD.
Thanks for the link -- that particular provider doesn't have a Win Vista 32 load (actually only one recovery tagged to "Touchsmarts" of any stripe)
do you know of any other providers of recovery media?