Can't Load Windows - any version

My sister has a Travelmate 4001LCi, it came with XP Home and all was great until the keyboard was sticking. I ordered a replacement, put it in but had problems, the slot where the ribbon goes broke and I had to put in a replacement piece to hold the ribbon. It worked, the keyboard worked fine, but, Windows kept crashing. I used the restore disc and no joy, wouldn't load. I tried W2K, Win98, you name it, no joy. Tested the RAM, swaped hard drive, re-set the bios (haven't wiped the bios or flashed it yet).

Then I tried Ubuntu, worked perfectly. Loaded no problem and ran beautifully. My sister hates Linux, anything that is not Windows. She's used to Windows. She gave it to her neighbor who managed to load the recovery disc and it worked, for a few days. Then it crashed, same old routine.

I've nuked the disc, wrote it to zeros, partioned & re-partitioned until the cows came no. Same bull, no Windows. Mandrake? Sure. Lindows? You bet, Red Hat? Of course. No Windows.

Help.

 

Maybe if you redo the connection, it might work.