So
I thought I would get some of the PC parts in the garage together and see what works and what doesn't.
I have a test PC which I had previously built. AMD 1600+ on a gigabyte motherboard with 260mb SD RAM. I have tested the ram using memtest and found no errors.
So, I put it together with a spare 8 gig Seagate hard drive and a spare Liteon CDRW. BIOS recognizes all the parts so I start installing XP. At the file copying stage I get an error that it couldn't copy a file! I keep pressing enter but it will not go past this point. So ...
I replaced Liteon CDRW for a Sony CDR - same problem
I replaced the Sony CDR for a Ricoh CDRW - same problem
Replaced cable to CD - same problem
Tried different installation CD - same problem
Reset BIOS to default safe settings - same problem
Replaced Seagate hard drive with a Fujitsu 4.3 gig hard drive - same problem
How annoying is this?