WinXP on SS51

[Sust]

I've been trying to tech support my brother-in-law thru his first DIY computer.
His problem is this:
When installing winXP with the bootable CD I made for him, he is able to get thru the partitioning portion of the setup process. However, as winXP continues to setup and copy files from the CD, it will spit back an occasional dialogue box saying that it cannot find a certain dll, jpg, etc.
When he takes the CD out of the drive and brings it to another computer to look for the missing file, he is able to find it on the CD.
Finally, the setup process ends and the real installation of windows XP begins with its colorful screens and such.

What in the world could be the trouble. I have had him check the connections many times over and I dont think it's that.
I've had him remove all of the jumpers off of all the IDE devices which happened to speed things up dramatically.
I've even had him swap the long rounded cable for a normal ribbon-like cable, and that has not produced any improvement with the CD situation.
I have sent him 2 copies of bootable versions of winXP professional and I am positive they work b/c it worked on my system without a single hitch. It's even able to coexist with RH linux.

I don't know. I'm at a loss and I'm running out of solutions. I told him that the San Jose Fry's might have pulled another fast one on us. First they sold us a reboxed P4, and then they sold us a stick of RAM which was "certified to work" but turned out to be a computer killer. Now im wondering if the same situation is happening with the CDROM. Grr... no more San Jose for me. From now on, we're only going to the one in Hayward.

Anyways, does anyone have any advice as to why that is happening?

 

[Sust]

I think I might have figured out my own problem.
I sent him a "copy" of my winxp pro CD thru regular US mail.
Is it possible that the equipment they use to scan the mail nowadays could have corrupted the CD?
If so then that would explain the problems I've been having recently in mailing him the CDs.
I live on the east coast and he is on the west coast.
Perhaps this time I will try UPS and hope that their scanning equipment wont do any damage.

 

[Tal]

That seems unlikely. I've sent many a cd in the mail through USPS and UPS and never had any trouble. What program are you burning XP with? -TAL

 

[Sust]

Thanks for the response, Tal.

I wouldnt think it was that unlikely. I mailed it from a post office near my work place here in Washington DC.
It wouldnt surprise me at all if they are doing something to the mail that renders pathogens or other biohazmats less hazardous.
This is, after all, where anthrax was sent and it came thru a DC mail sorting branch called Brentwood.
But I burned XP from a distribution we got at my work place and I used this link to burn the final CD with Nero.
I used the same CD to install WinXP on my old celery 550 and it worked w/o a problem.
One more reason to make me think that they zapped the mail, is that I sent 6 floppy boot disks (which I KNEW worked)with another copy of the winxp CD and even the floppies failed to boot properly.

Any further advice would be welcome.