A big shout out to all those who offered help and suggestions with this issue.
In the end I tried, in order, VMWare and Oracle Virtual Box, neither of which seemed to want to install easily. Probs me doing something wrong - I totally get that.
But not wanting to drag it out forever, I then went the SSD way as suggested by Tandum to just speed up the machine. That worked a treat and Robin's (Tandum) help with the cloning software and advice ensured it went flawlessly.
So I'm a happy camper once again and hopefully the PC will last a while longer.
Cheers
