The installations of XP files come up with 'cannot copy file press enter to retry etc etc' as Jue says and there's the occasional blue screen of death, sometimes when u are trying to install the windows files u have copied (saying there's not enuf files', which is hardly surprising.., sometimes its the traditional bsod.., that '.., IRQ ..,greater than ' screen that I usually associate with RAM probs.
We have swapped out the two RAM sticks one by one with one that works, no difference. We also put in another smaller Lappy HD.., made no difference (in fact it failed to install even quicker than normal lol).
We have many times hard formatted the HD.., once trying Vista's method to see if that made a difference but have now tried to install XP pro about 20 times, using different versions that we have built up over time. Not a single one has resulted in anything like a working version of XP installed.
The files it won't copy.., well there are some that are favourites (like the sweetie 'shell32.dll' that appears a lot, and a few others. There are lots that only appear once tho. Most will copy on retry (well they don't appear again in the same install.., I think) but there are always two or three that won't at all so I have to press escape and skip copying the file.
There do seem to be more 'file won't copy' incidents the nearer u get to the end of the HD. I did partition the drive from 80Gb to 60Gb but it didn't stop that at all.
I just don't know if its the DVD drive or the HD.., probably not the RAM.., or maybe its something else completely (like the BIOS is out of date) .., or a combination of several things.
lol.., I guess I'll be selling the more solid parts on Ebay and trying to get some money back lol. Unfortunately I suspect the lappy is a money pit with no guarantee of ever getting it working.
Frustration Rules lol - 3 days and I've still no clear idea lol.