Ah, but what if you had no internet connection and no prior experience with recovery of OS-X?

Under Windows at least the systems gives you options, ie Your PC failed to start last time, would you like to boot to Safe mode etc.... OS-X just gives you the same screen each time, no error code, no hints, nothing! Just a blue screen.

And when I did get to command prompt I couldn't type anything. The keyboard I was using works just fine on the mac when I have tried it in the past, and I tried it just now and again it's fine.

The option of re-installing everything without loosing my stuff is great, but there is nothing to support a simple End User such as myself, for that you must pay. I bought a mac to get away from this kind of thing. I now have a bitter taste in my mouth, there isn't even a hardware fault, I have uninstalled nothing and the system now appears fine. so it must be something in the OS that cocked up. Right?

Why can't I just have a system that works 100% (although I see hardware will always fail at some point).

Edit - I have a PC downstairs that runs my servers (CCTV, music and video) it's on 24/7 and has been for almost a year now, it runs XP Pro SP1, never locked up, never crashed. It's 1 - 0 to XP at the moment in this house. Coming to think of it the only times XP on my laptop has locked was my doing, so maybe that's 2 - 0 to XP?

Cheers

Cris.