Same problem here. And I'm running 32 bit windows on my laptop. Can I solve the issue by creating a bootable USB running ubuntu (64 bit), and installing QT + armory?
Probably
And will I be able to transfer the blockchain across rather than having to wait for QT to sync (which would probably take a week)?
Yes, you should be able to copy everything from the directory where Bitcoin-Qt stores its blockchain to the similar directory under Linux (.bitcoin/blocks - be aware that .bitcoin starts with a dot making it a hidden directory). You should definetely copy all blk*.dat files, and probably also the index and rev*.dat files.
Good luck!