"Please wait" repair install Windows XP Home OEM

[#1]

I'd be grateful if anyone could help advise me why repair installs on Windows XP Home OEM stall on "Please wait" for days (we left it over the long weekend and it was still stuck).
Manually shutting the machine down you are then able to log on as if the install completed. I could return it to the user with that done, as it seems fine, but I'm curious why the repair doesn't appear to complete and concerned that it may be unstable.
Machine has been tested for HDD using SeaTools, Spinrite and dskchk for good measure. Memtest86+ checks out perfectly..
Bios is now  the most recent for the laptop model and all drivers were deleted from C:\windows\system32\drivers when this failed the first time it was attempted. During the most recent repair install attempt the most newest drivers from the Fujitsu Siemens website were provided where requested by Windows.
The disc is not the original OEM but is a Windows XP Home OEM CD and the key appears to work.
Windows XP SP3 was installed but removed prior to repair install.
I'm going to try slipstreaming a XP Home SP3 disc tomorrow but any other ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Any thoughts?

[#2]

OEM disk are often custom installs which the OEM has setup to get the pc working ie it will have drivers and custom setup for recovery login and many more options specific to the OEM. If you use another oem disk it may have some routines it cant run as it hasnt got the right hardware or bios. Most Dell OEM disk wont load on another pc as it looks for the DELL bios and if it doesnt find it wont run.
Part of the OEM install is the activation which is specific to the OEM a lot of the crack for Vista try to convince the O/S its running on another bios so it will activate.
If you have used the wrong disk any of the above could cause the problem as its stuck there waiting to find the right bios or similar you are lucky it work I would get the WGA file and test to see if it thinks its genuine fromhttp://www.microsoft.com/Genuine/ if it doesnt then the user may get the dreaded you have pirated software in the future

[#3]

The disc is a official holographed Microsoft OEM copy, not a disc as shipped with Dell etc. I am familiar with these problems.
As these discs are ordered without knowledge of the final system (often by custom PC builders) I can't believe there is any requirement for specific hardware, if it is it is undocumented.
I'll continue trying to slipstream and seeing where that gets me.

[#4]

If you are using a generic windows disk, rather then one from your hardware manufacturer, I would suggest after installing that you go to the manufacturer's website and download and install all the drivers for your specific system.
To do this, you might have to boot into "safe mode plus networking" if the default drivers are causing problems.