I have overcome the Ping problem by using another program http://www.tellurian.com/scripts/tools/ping.asp, this will allow me to collect the data requested by TalkTalk but I still have no idea why windows will not perform this task.

http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/other-software/ping-not-recognized-internal-external-command-15364.html

Seems a path variable may have been messed up by some software previously installed.

http://forums.techguy.org/t420462.html also mentions it

Great stuff!, thanks for the links I am still working my way through the information, in between collecting data for TalkTalk, I will post back later on in the day, hopefully with a success story.

Some success, I have now sorted out the Path problem and the CMD.exe is working ok, e.g., I can get it to respond to "ipconfig /all" now and other commands as well but I still cannot get it to accept a 'ping' command it keeps returning "request timed out". I decided to further test this command by booting into my back up copy of Windows XP which I have on a different drive. This is a bare bones installion with just internet access anti-virus and a few other small utilities. The 'ping' command would not work here either.
Whilst I was in this windows installation i decided to try the speedtest that I have been conducting for TalkTalk and was astonished to find that the figures were significantly higher.I am getting over 2400kbps. consistently and 185kbps. (uploads) this compares with 1600kbps and 130kbps. 50% higher than I am getting from my normal operating system, is there a clue to the problem here?.

Not all web hosts are pingable, so which hosts are returning a request timed out, and some software firewalls are known to block ping, or can be set to do this

I was trying .bbc.co.uk and taltalk.co.uk have just tried amazon.co.uk, same result.

Only bbc.co.uk returns a result for me, the second two time out due to the server not responding to ping

Worth knowing, I tried bbc.co.uk again but it timed out in just over a second.

Things have moved on at quite a pace in the past 24hrs. I decided to check my Microfilters (3) and found one that I deemed to be faulty, this i replaced and saw an immediate improvement in my download speed. I was now getting speeds of 2400-2600kbps. quite an improvement. today TalkTalk have made some adjustments to my connection and I have completely un-installed my speedtouch modem and re-installed the drivers for my SmartAX Modem.I am now getting download speeds of 3500kbps. which I am delighted with.