Russ Cox's post (clipped):-

<<<< Moved it back to the test bench, and so far I cannot boot successfully from floppy or CD or restore CDs. It just stops responding to anything.  Removed the two PCI cards (modem, firewire) and the additional memory. Still won't successfully complete any action, including restore.  Got it to start to restore, stops at 5% if it even gets that far.>>>

I would first suspect a failing HDD. is it S.M.A.R.T compliant? If so some info about the state of the HDD could be had. you have not mentioned any error msgs.in your entire post which to me is rather surprising with win xp

there is also the issue of the "efficacy" of HP "restore cds" and there are threads on this in this forum. I am sorry I do'nt remember the exact month/subject line but a search of the past 3 months should lead you there. 
 
I know this is not of much help but still....

good luck----Venkat

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