If only this had been posted a month earlier! ! ! I tried removing Vista and got frozen out at the philips screen too. Unfortunately for me, I was even MORE stupid by breaking into the ‘void if removed sticker’. I got the drive out… replaced with a bigger version, and got the whole thing up and running again with a fresh Vista install, but the original drive was knackered… and after putting everything back together, for some reason part of the keyboard (the left side of the spacebar and the Alt key) were raised (allowing dust and all other kinds of crap to easily get in. Two days later the touchpad kicked the bucket… so using a USB mouse was the only way to navigate.

I bought another identical model last month and have been ‘ living ‘ with Vista… but some of my favourite software is incompatible, and there’s just no way I can afford to invest in all new sotware versions. And so, after reading this I’m going to buy a 3rd unit to see if I can achieve what you have now that you’ve posted this solution. If successful, I’ll be happier with this laptop than I’ve ever been. Thanks for posting !