Trouble Installing Windows

[TyKoN]

I've wiped my hard drive and am trying to install windows on my computer again. I've done this several times before without any trouble. But this time something seems to have gone wrong.

I've set up my BIOS to boot from CD. But it seems that sometimes it wont boot from the CD. It tells me there was an error and I have to insert a system disk. I eject and clean off the CD a bit and now it recognizes the CD. It starts the Windows setup and loads some of the files but suddenly it says something like "Could not find random file name, setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit." The problem is that the file that is missing is different every time.

Is this a problem with my CD? maybe it's too scratched up? Or is it a problem with my CD drive? How do I fix this?

Thanks for looking!

 

[lenjack]

I had this a couple of years ago. Found some info that helped. Set everything to default in the bios. Use only 1 stick of ram. Disable and physically disconnect all but one optical drive...so that Windows doesn't have to decide which cd or dvd drive to use. Disconnect secondary hd(s) if present. Try again and report back. Luck!

 

[TyKoN]

I set the BIOS to default and I only have one stick of memory and one HDD anyway so I'm guessing that's not the problem. I even disconnected and reconnected the memory and HDD to make sure the connection was secure.

Any other ideas?

 

[buddhika]

I my self got simillar problem but it was my old pc and was turned off for long time
did your pc was off for a long time?

i couldnt install win XP or win98.

if your cd is scratched then it could be the problem, but in my case it couldnt be the cd as i cant install both XP and 98.