Failing that, an analogue to York's Comprec (www.comprec.org.uk) where she
could just grab a 'new' (haha) PC with linux preinstalled, and possibly get
rid of the old one, would be a godsend.
Well, I don't think there's anywhere that you could buy a pre-built linux machine around here, but I suppose if a person asked nicely, they might be able to get the guys down at Titan Computers to help with a reinstall. I've been in there a couple times and have always walked away happy (though in all fairness, I've never really taxed their abilities, but it's always been stuff that I know would get blank stares at PC World).
Truth be told, I think you'll have better luck trying to rope some poor soul on this list into help out. If it's just a straight reinstall, I could probably have a crack at it this weekend. I'm not very familiar with some of the low level diagnostic tools to determine if the hard drive has actually packed up, but I can check for loose cabling. :)
If no one more capable steps forward today, send me a message off list and we'll see what we can do.