well, memtest came back fine. a friend of mine mentioned using a program to write all zeros onto the HDD, then reinstalling XP?
last times I had problem like that:
1- bad dvd drive; cant get all windows installed
2- bad cpu; keep crashing on me
hope 4 u its only the drive
Anyone who think a computer is sexy need to #$? and fast
I had a problem installing windows just recently, first problem was the install would run until "setup is starting windows", would stick on that screen and not progress.
After checking the windows disc and hdd in another machine, i tried one stick of RAM at a time, same problem each time. Removed gfx card and a pci usb 2.0 card.
This time it got past the starting windows screen and proceeded to the format/install screen.
Turned out the pci usb card was the problem.
Tried to install and got errors copying files.
switched out the sata cables for the hdd and the ide cable for the optical, and replaced the optical with a known working drive, and windows installed with no issues.
So try and rule out bad install disc and bad hdd first, then go from there.
Why not use LinuxMint or Ubuntu since this machine will be used only for web surfing?