After wiping the hard drive clean and reinstalling, my shiny new mac is actually running and I can get some work done. I managed to use the "migrate" tool and it automatically transferred all my old stuff as well. The only niggle is that I couldn't use boot camp to partition the drive to install XP, so I'll do one more round of wipe, partition, install SL, install XP, work, work, work.
Faith is restored. Well, for now...
