Sorry Martin, I am sure I replied earlier...but it's not there

Anyway, I can edit the BOOT.ini in notepad as you suggest and looking at your latest post, I could change the attributes. However looking at the file it throws up another interesting point.

It appears to be missing some lines:

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=5
Default=C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT
[Operating Systems]
C:\ = "Microsoft Windows"
C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT = "Windows XP Installation/Upgrade"

Where are the ARC path lines?

Could it be back to the point I raised before about the position of the drive on IDE channel 1 or thinking it was a slave?