BleepingComputer.com: Can anyone recommend a comprehensive hardware diagnostic?

I have been having trouble with my home-brewed Vista system for over a month now. It started shortly after I inadvertently visited what I suspect may be a malicious web site, and I initially thought the problems were related. But I have replaced the hard drive (twice), wiped the old drives with dban, run a MemTest86+ scan for over 24 hours with no errors, and I still cannot restore (from a Ghost 14.0 backup) or reload Windows Vista (from the original installation CD) without encountering an "uncorrectable hardware error" BSOD. How many places can malware hide?

I am on the verge of scrapping this system and purchasing a new motherboard, CPU and OS. But before I do I would like to find out for certain where the problem is. MemTest and dban run just fine; it's only Windows which continually crashes. Can anyone recommend a comprehensive hardware diagnostic which does not need to be run from Windows? Failing that, can anyone tell me if there will be any issues restoring my data from the Ghost backup (which came from a Vista 32 bit system) to an x64 OS?

This post has been edited by ehbowen: 19 December 2009 - 02:06 PM

Malware can only hide on storage devices. There is no place for it to be physically stored in the Motherboard, CPU. However I would try swapping the memory first. You can use a program called PCwizard from CPUID.com. However it runs in windows. The reason I said try swaping the memory first is even though it passed memtest there could be a problem somewhere. If you have 2x512 mb sims try removing one and see if windows will install. If not then swap them and try again.

Ditto on above. Memory causes the most hardware install errors by far. Even when the memory passes every test you throw at it, pull a stick/swap slots and try your installs again.