Windows upgrade Failure

I have this wierd problem with my pc:

We bought a pc with window xp pre installed, with 128 RAM. I downgraded it to windows 2000 since it was for some reason slow. It is a p4 1.8. I'm sure that's weird, but it is slow.
Anyway it worked fine, after buying additional ram I decided to upgrade to windows xp Professional.
After a few reboots the hard drive fails.
So I repair via the installation screen.
It was okay after a few reboots, then it fails.

Here's a list of what I tried to do after the above:

Erased the hard drive, reinstalled a fresh installation of windows Xp prof. < Failure
Replace RAM for testing one after the other < failure

Afterward wards I erased the hard drive then reinstalled window 2000 < Good as new
NOW WHY?

It works in safemode but just fails in normal boot

Please help

Hi, and welcome to AO.....

My (personal) view is that you have a machine with insufficient RAM................this one is running XP pro quite happily with 1024Mb, with XP Pro, I would not like to go below 512Mb.

Win2000Pro will run quite happily on a machine with 128Mb of RAM, although I would recommend at least 256, and preferably 512Mb................I have 5 machines running Windows 2000..........but I have never thought about building one with less than 1024Mb of RAM, other than PC3200RAM

Now, your particular problem................I would reformat and re-install...............Winm2K

I will not even bother to ask about if it was a pirate XP version :D

Good luck

Thanks for the welcome sir.
Well then its hardware. So 512 mb of RaM will be okay then?
Thanks!!!

Hi, Keith

Yes, I believe that it is hardware..............get yourself up to 512Mb and things will improve!...any more is added bonus, but 512 is cool

just my thoughts........and years of experience?

:D :D