Windows Server 2003 help

[aspnetguy]

I am installing Windows Server 2003 and getting some weird results. My first attempt was successful and without a problem. I install Server 2003 Standard SP1 (downloaded and installed) on a PII 400, 256Mb RAM with IIS, ASP.Net 2.0, SQL server 2000 SP4, Mysql 5, and PHP5, and all without a single hitch...too good to be true. So since everything went so smoothly I went ahead and tried on what will be my server PIII600, 512 MB RAM, First try, Server 2003 couldn't find a file when installing, retried and it worked. Downloaded SP1 and when I was extracting it said "file is corrupt", downloaded 4 more times with same result. reformatted and reinstalled 5 more times and cannot get past "file is corrupt" on SP1 and sometimes extracting the .Net 2.0 installer got the same error. I swap all hardware with PC from first try (except RAM, Mobo, CPU, CDROM) with no change. Win98 and XP installed fine on the second PC just can't get server 2003. Is this a harware issue? Is my server 2003 CD toast? If it is the CD why does it install fine on the 1st PC? Please help! PS my next atempt will be to swap RAM and CDROMS with the 2 PCs and see if that helps

[justsomeguy]

I suspect the RAM. No doubt Server 2003 requires more then the other OSs you listed, so it is more likely to use all of the RAM. It is probably using nearly all of the 512 during installation to unpack everything, and there's probably a couple bad bits in the RAM that are throwing it off, where the other OSs wouldn't use enough RAM to hit the bad sectors.RAM is probably the easiest to check anyway, if you have several chips then try removing them one at a time to find out which one is the problem. Thankfully, RAM is also probably the cheapest thing to replace other then a power supply or something.

[aspnetguy]

I suspect the RAM. No doubt Server 2003 requires more then the other OSs you listed, so it is more likely to use all of the RAM. It is probably using nearly all of the 512 during installation to unpack everything, and there's probably a couple bad bits in the RAM that are throwing it off, where the other OSs wouldn't use enough RAM to hit the bad sectors.RAM is probably the easiest to check anyway, if you have several chips then try removing them one at a time to find out which one is the problem. Thankfully, RAM is also probably the cheapest thing to replace other then a power supply or something.

I'll swap the 512 (2x256) with the 256(2x128) from the PC that didn't have any troubles with SP1, thanks

[aspnetguy]

swapped the ram and it worked perfectly. Thanks. Just need to determine which stick was bad and replace it.