Zman, can you tell us what the stop code is on the Blue Screen? Also, if you hit F8 while the system is first starting you can get the option to not automatically restart when it crashes/Blue-Screens. This way you can copy down the information. If you get the information on the blue screen we ( or the devs over on the official Windows Vista Support Forum located here http://tinyurl.com/d5r9v3 ) can probably tell you the likely cause and how to better go about trying to fix it. It sounds like a hardware issue, but something bizzarro happening with software (or malware for that matter) hasn't been ruled out yet. If you can get us more specific information we can help you better.
As far as the samsung HDD test, I'm not sure what the issue is, but it seems it doesn't like how your system is built out, because it can't autodetect your CD drive and correctly utilize your memory. Not sure how to proceed with that one short of maybe some other tools. There are numerous other tools on the market for HDD testing if the one from the manufacturer doesn't work right off.