Yes, I am getting somewhere! - manage to boot up with CD-ROM first not sure what it is doing now - hang on!

I've got a Dell as well. Anyway, you should be able to hit F2 to get to the setup menu. If your dell is like mine you should find a page that lists the boot order for your drives. You need to move the CDROM to the top of this list. I will need to reboot my computer to get exactly what mine says, so let me know if this doesn't get you anywhere.

It has just started loading files from CD-ROM in Windows setup now - is that OK?

Yep, just as long as you don't tell it to install when the option comes up. All it is doing now is loading files into the system memory to run the install process.

Hey mate, I need your help again - now at recovery console page and it is asking me what Windows installation would you like to log onto - should I now try and type in the command I got from Microsoft's web page as follows:- cd\windows\system32 etc and then rename ntfs.sys to ntfs.old? - it will only let me type in c so far and not cd etc!!? bloody things do my head in!

Hi sean. I'm just guessing because I can't see, but does it give you any menu options or anything else on the screen? It is asking which windows you want to mount as the one to be repaired but I think it should give you an option...

What now mate - don't go away I am nearly there!

Hi mate - I think actually it is only giving me option of c:\windows so think I should just press enter for that and then type in my command to copy from CD-ROM the new ntfs file??

Very little on screen - just says type exit to quit recovery console and restart.

Then it says 1: C:\WINDOWS and then "which windows installation would you like to log onto (to cancel press enter)?
don't know what to do now.

Sounds right. Give it a go. (there actually should only be one option in most cases.)