Windows Hangs up on install

[Smokey The Bear]

Recently my desktop decided to come up with some fatal errors keeping me from booting into xp stably. I could boot into safe mode where I was able to pull off my data so I could give my computer a fresh copy of xp. Everything pulled off successfully. I put in my professional disk and started reformatting the c drive. That was successful. Now for copying over windows files. I made it all the way to 90% something were it hangs up and doesn't copy over wimp.dll. I looked at my disc and noticed a few small scratches. So I burned off a new copy of Xp professional this time it has sp3 on it though. I reformatted it again and now it hangs up on wpdshext.dll off of a brand new non scratched disc. At this point I have become frustrated with it and haven't tried anything else.

Any ideas?
Could my hard drive be bad? It likes to corrupt windows every 8-10 months since I have first built it.

Hard drive is a western digital 250gig caviar

Specs:
3800x2
dfi lanparty mobo
7800gt
2gigs of corsair
540watt psu

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[13black]

Go to the drive manufacturers web site, you should be able to download a utility to test the drive for errors. Might want to run memtest too, to rule out a possible bad stick of ram.

 

[mpilchfamily]

I've had problems like that before due to a failing drive. It had many corrupted sectors and many could not be fully repaired. While the drive utility from the manufacture may fix the problem but really its just a small effort in futility. Chances are it is dieing and needs to be replaced.

 

[MadAmos]

Also RAM problems are a common cause of Install problems I would run at least 4 passes with memtest overnight would be better or if you have a different comparable stick of ram at min. 512Mb try that.

 

[RebateMonger]

Yeah, if XP is getting corrupted periodically, it's likely either RAM or hard-drive related. Both are testable and cheap to replace.

 

[Smokey The Bear]

I recently Replaced the ram when a stick went bad 6 months ago. Corsair replaced both sticks. just fyi

 

[MadAmos]

Are you overclocking? If so I would go to all the default settings for the initial install, and it is always possible that the replacement RAM is faulty or just plain incompatible for some reason. If you can borrow a stick of a different brand it would be worth a try.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Classic case of bad ram or overclocking causing low level data errors IMO

 

[Smokey The Bear]

I had it overclocked for a while and it ran stable for ever. I backed it back down to default after my last reformat. I'm going to run memtest as soon as I have the time.