I had win2k pro running on my machine for ~4 months. The system crashed and was unable to be restarted / repaired. I've attempted to reinstall and i constantly get the setup telling me it cannot find particular files (random, the files setup can't find change each time i try). The hardware is an asus p3v4 mobo, p3 800 cpu, 512mb ram. I've tried installing XP with the same result. Tried different cdroms, different hard drives and changed the bios version. I've been able to install win98 on the machine without any problems.. Anyone got any ideas?

98 is ALOT less fussy than Xp or 2000 about installing. Xp wont install for a good reason. u said it cant find particular files (random) is this after it has copied to hard drive or whilst copying from CD rom? If its from the HDD then there is likly to be bad sectors it is copying to. In this case running system recovery console (xp serup) and trying a factory format on your Drive, or using the Drive manufactorers software (my maxtor software recovers anything !!) Perhaps a few more details on the problem will help me fnd a solution for you. regards

Bad RAM sometimes causes this issue. The information on the cd is moving along the bus on the motherboard... into RAM... and back out again. If there is bad spot on the RAM, it will throw up a can't copy file error messages. If you have more than one stick of RAM, pull one. Try the install again. If it doesn't work, try the other stick. Try different slots also. May be a bad slot.

newgrl is right on the money. 99% of the time when the setup complains it can't find/copy files, it's because of bad RAM.

It does the initial copy (where it copies the files from cd to the $win_nt$.~ls directory, reboots, i get to choose the partition options, then starts to copy files, then fails randomly. I've tried copying the i386 dir (and all subfolders) to the hdd with the same result. I've tried two different hard drives (one is 3 days old) bad sectors is unlikely. I haven't tried taking RAM out yet but i don't hold much hope:)