ooops didn't see this til now.

thats Ok - I can't see any reason why the old one shouldn't be OK.

I could well have been a virus but I could not get the virus checker to work, and windows defender went down as well! I really wasnted to invest in a Mac - but I just don't have that extra few pennies to spend at the moment.

Thinking about it, you don't have to buy a Mac to get a pre-installed *Nix system. These guys ship pre-installed Linux machines & pretty reasonable price too, bearing in mind they're probably pretty near to custom built and you'd get proper support.

If it's a refurb then you should have a coa sticker on it some where like this the top one is what a retail coa looks like and the bottom 2 what OEM COA is like.



You only need a copy of a windows disk to reinstall the Operating system borrow a friends disk if they have one you don't need thier COA code as you already have one on the side of your PC.
Put the CD in the drive and as long as your pc can boot from the DVD/ CD drive then it should automaticly start to install windows for you.
Just follow the on screen instructions you shouldn't have any trouble with it at all, after installation you'll have to active it if you don't do it over the Internet you can do it via the free phone number it's all automated so you don't speak to any one aslong as you have a touch tone phone you can activate your OS this way.