first off i dont know much about this at all so... ya.. i recently tried putting in a brand new hd and tried installing xp but 1/2 way through it said the disk may be corrupt or the scsi needs to be terminated.. im not quite sure what this means or what needs to be done.. but i dont want to go buy any parts . Also when i tried putting my original hd back in the OS was corrupt so when i tried installing it on that again i got the same message.. anyone know what i should do? I dont really know my specs either its a really 'sketchy' homemade computer. Any ideas/help appreciated!

I think it less that 50% chance you do have a scsi. I'd look to damaged/defective cables or ide chipset or maybe even memory. Start with bios. Use the failsafe settings if present. Check that the hard drive is reported as what it really is. Go and get the best quality IDE cable and use them. I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you goober.