Help! Can't install windows on CF-T4?

I got a CF-T4 Toughbook on ebay recently because I wanted a rugged computer to run some Windows XP programs for work and school. It had Windows XP on it and worked great for about a week.

On night I decided to run a SMART check of the hard drive and then shut it down. The next time I tried to boot it I got a blue screen and "could not load \system 32". Some google searches told me that I had a corrupted OS and it was pretty much unrecoverable. I bought a Windows XP CD on eBay from a reputable seller. When the CD came it turned out to be an OEM reinstallation CD of SP3. I'm not sure if that's the problem or not.

Since the CF-T4 doesn't have a CD drive I hooked up a USB DVD drive and proceeded to try installing it. The first time I got an \i386 error. When I tried it again I got all the way to the "copying files" part of the process where it failed on the third file. The strange thing is, every time I try the install it fails at a different point. When I selected the option to reformat the hard drive before installing XP I got the farthest - up to 39% of the files copied before the installation failed. So the way I see it the problem could be any of the following:
Hard drive failure (yet it formats fine)
RAM failure (not sure how to test it?)
Bad CD
Problem with the external DVD player

So where should I start trying to fix it? This is a nice laptop in great shape, I really want it working again.

*quick note regarding the CD - it is AFAIK an official copy and I do have a COA for it. the eBay seller has positive feedback from other people who bought their CDs.

 

Welcome to the Panasonic Toughbook forum

I had this problem before and it was the cd-rom drive that was no good...cheap China drive.

 

Hard drive is kaput,that's my guess. I have had a bunch of T5's and various other ide toughbooks,my last problem like this was the drive. Do you have another one to try? Also a lot easier to install from a flash drive,use the program called Rufus.

If it won't install with usb get a drive.

 

Agree with safn, sounds like the hard drive is bad. I use a program called Spinrite on IDE hard drives.

 

Use a linux live cd/dvd to see if it can access the drive. If it can and it's slow as hell in doing it, yep you have hard drive problems.

 

Well....If it was me, I would try the cheapest option first. Copy the entire cd to a folder on the drive. Then try to run the XP install from the folder.
The truth is any of those problems is equally possible. I have experienced the same problem as you are several times. Trying a different CD drive would be my second choice. Did you do a quick format or a full format?

Another "possibility" would be a nasty rootkit virus on the hard drive.

 

Turns out it was just a bad CD. Problem solved!