WinXP was a clean install (like i said above i dual boot so i've got Win98 running in one partition and WinXP in another partition, both of which were clean installs).
I'll see if i can get hold of another PC and test it out. I'm just not sure why it would work okay under my 98 partiton not my XP one hence why i think something i've installed has screwed xp (messed with the aspi interface).
I hate computers

My drive did seem fine before some of the CDR software i installed recently.