[SOLVED] operating system won't load correctly

I am assembling a computer for my son for christmas.. I bought a new inexpensive motherboard and cpu (a biostar with a duron 700mhz processor) and a used hard drive and floppy, cdrw.
It boots up fine but I cannot get the operating system to load correctly.. it always ends up saying some of the files are corrupted, or unable to copy certain key files.. I have tried both ME and XP. I think it might be the hard drive, although it seems to check out ok when I do a scan disk, so I thought I would start with replacing that. .. I hope it isn't the mb or the cpu, but at least they are still under warranty.
Any ideas?
thanks!

 

You say a used hard drive, did you fdisk and repartition and reformat the drive

Another thing would be memory, if you have multiple sticks installed remove all but one, if that one doesn't work, try another, could be a bad stick

 

I did the fdisk and format. I have a 256 stick that I just bought new. I will try swapping it out with the 256 in my other computer and see if that helps.
thanks

 

I haven't tried this trick with ME or XP yet, but for Win95 and Win98 it works great.
I'll step through for Win98, since that's what I know. Should be similar for the newer OS'. The CD is bootable, so boot using the CD. It will get you into DOS mode with a ramdrive loaded with utilities. After you format the C: drive (make sure to use the /s switch to transfer the system files to the C: drive) use MD to set up a new directory Win98 (for example). Copy all the files from the Win98 directory on the CD to the Win98 directory on the C:. I usually switch to the Win98 directory on the CD and type COPY *.* C:\Win98. After that's done, pull the CD out and re-boot. You should get to a C:>. Switch to the Win98 directory and type SETUP. It will do a complete install from the HDD.

Based on my experience, I'm more inclined to suspect a problem with the used CD-RW before anything else.

 

I actually already tried that. I copied all the files to the harddrive and then tried to install with the same results. I also tried copying from a new CDrom which I also have on this system.
When I tried to do the format /S it says I don't have enough memory.. So I went back and did a straight format and then booted to the CDrom. So at this point it is either the memory or the hard drive or the motherboard.
Who is the most likely suspect?
This is great to have y'all to talk to!

 

Are you sure you are getting a memory error? or hard drive space error?

Also, can you tell us the steps you are using to fdisk and format?

 

I typed in fdisk and set up the partitions and then from an a: i typed in format C:/s... then it said "there is not enough memory"
So i just typed format c: and it did it.
When I was installing windows xp I have tried reformating in ntfs and also just converting to ntfs... staying in fat32, etc. etc.
I finally got xp to load up and act as if it is working until you try to do something, like open outlook express (cannot load msoe.dll) or install office, at which point it goes into a spaz attack, won't reboot and says there is a system error and shuts down completely.
I changed out the memory module and that didn't fix it. So now I guess I am down to the motherboard, cpu or hard drive.

 

replaced the hard drive and all is well!
Santa is coming to our house after all!