XP SP3 Install turns to blue screen, data dump

It was ALL brand new parts. I went to Tiger last Sunday and bought everything, from the case up. My first actual from-scratch computer, instead of merely upgrading and tweaking ones I already own. ^_^

That's why it's been so painful and aggravating to have this happen to me.

So, yes, I'm taking the drive back this afternoon. Friend suggests going to Western Digital instead of Seagate, because Seagate's really gone downhill in the last year, in terms of quality? (It was news to me, too.) Doesn't matter, in the end. I'll replace it with whatever Tiger offers - probably only be something like a 1:1 swap, where I get a Seagate for a Seagate.

My guess.

 

Did the swap. Dropped the new WD hard drive in and ran the long diagnostic before anything else. No way was I going through that whole song and dance a second time.

But, as of last night, I had a 500gb hard drive and 4gb RAM up and running in my new XP Pro machine. Everything seems to have (finally!) come together.

Thanks for pointing me in the right directions.