Compaq is screwing you. Their reinstall disks will put the same buggy crap right back on if you do a rebuild. Save yourself an immense about of wasted time and frustration by tossing the Compaq into the garbage and buy a different machine.
I do all my serious Photoshop, web site development, etc., on my Mac. If I had to do anything more significant than run a web browser or a Word document, I think I’d take you up on it. This is really a backup, backup machine.