I realize that I probably missed a step but, after finally deciding to do a reformat and fresh install of WinXP I'm having a few issues.

I followed the steps layed out in this handy article layed out by Chromite. But now I keep getting error messages left and right when I try to install any programs from a CD. (and a couple other download errors as well)

I keep getting an *MD5 error* message when trying to install programs from certain game disks such as BF2 and NWN. I have absolutely no idea what this is. It seems like my CD/RW drive is unable to read certain files on the disk or something and keeps asking if I want to retry to install the file.

I booted directly from my WinXP CD for the reformat and deleted all the partitions and used NTFS for reinstall. Then I downloaded my MB Drivers the graphics card drivers and the sound Drivers.

The I installed firewall, virus scan, ad-aware yadda yadda yadda. pretty much word for word in the article.

Am i missing something? I'm thinking I might have passed up a driver somewhere. Any help would be great. thanks.

EDIT: Forgive me if any, or all of this is unintelligable. I have never had to do a reformat before and this is all new to me

MD5 is a hashing method used to verify integrity. It does calculations on the file's bits to come up with a value. A small change in the file will create a huge difference in the final MD5 value. It's saying that the data is getting messed up when you're copying it. The data ending up on the hard drive isn't matching the data on the CD.

It sounds like you did everything correctly. I'd double check IDE and chipset drivers, as that's really the only thing that an optical drive would use. Maybe look for updated firmware for the drive.

It may just be a coincidence that your drive is crapping out at the same time...

Oh my god... they finally got around to moving my article from the Everquest 2 Reviews to its proper place! Maybe now I can finally update it without it getting borked again!

Anyone know if the editing of an article has been fixed on here? Last time I edited it got completely hosed and defaulted to Everquest 2 reviews.

Should be working fine. I posted an article and edited it last night.

If it is just doing this when installing from the CD Rom then id say Invisibill is right however if it does it when you download a program and install it as well I would say its probably either the HDD cables or a stick of memory is bad. Id download www.memtest.com and run that to see if it finds errors. I it does and you have multiple sticks of ram trying pulling one and runnning the test and switch it out with the other if you still have errors. I had this same problem when I had a stick of ram go bad.

I agree with Pokenm, I had a similar problem with my system when I did some work on it and reinstalled Windows XP. It was a stick of ram. download memtest and run it like it shows, that will tell you.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I hav'nt had a chance to test anything yet (too busy with work) but I'm glad I have somewhere to start now.

Oh and btw Chromite... That article you wrote up rocks.

Thanks, Montag.

Sorry it's not very complete. I totally lost steam when I found out it kept messing up when I'd edit it and just said 'aw screw it' and put it on the backburner.

I'll try to update it with latest versions and add a lot more detail and new things I've learned.

Well I finally got around to testing the RAM and sure enough, that was the problem. A single stick of my Ram (out of 4* 512MB) was bad.

I found a Diagnostic tool by Microsoft that worked very well.

Just wanted to say thanks again for the help. Im am officially a Happy Camper.