>>> Rich Barry wrote:

>>> Get into the Bios and set it to Default Settings.


>> "Sofa Slug" wrote...

>> I'm kind of reluctant to try that ...I've never had BIOS problems before
>> and I don't want to mess anything up. The machine was working fine for
>> years, then recently started booting to a STOP: c000021a {Fatal System
>> Error}. That's the reason for the new install.
>>

DL wrote:

> Setting bios to defaults causes no harm, and would be how your sys was
> origonally supplied
> By clean install, you did delete your partition (at least the
origonal win
> partition) format, using the wincd, and not a third party tool?
>
>


It wasn't the BIOS, but you were on the right track with the HD... I
finally fixed the problem by overwriting the drive with all zeros using
KillDisk. after that, the installation went off without a hitch.
Something must have been borked in the master boot record or a sector
somewhere.

-Thanks