Help!! :S Windows installation issue..

Here's my problem. (background first) I have a 5 year old, Windows 2000 professional HD (10gb). My brother took the Windows 2000 professional CD-ROM to college. Being that I am low on money (parents unemployed after moving from DR) I downloaded Windows 2000 professional and burned it on a CD. Well, after burning it on a CD, I decided to test it. It didn't auto-run after setting the CD-RW drive as main booting device. So far so good, right? When I realize this isn't working, I test it to make sure I setup my BIOS correctly with a Recovery disc that is no longer working (because I lost the floppies) and it works. Well, still so far so good, or so I thought. When I try to load up Win2000 again, I get a file system error, I thought to myself, that it's not something a few restarts couldn't fix..wrong again..so now, I borrowed myt friends HD that has WinXP to install Win2000 with the CD I burned..Wrong AGAIN! It says I can't install anything to a higher version of Windows. My question: What do I do?

Here's what I have to my access: Red Hat Linux CD (Original), Windows 2000 CD. I'm willing to format, just tell me how and I'll back everything up. Thanks for all the help. Please reply ASAP!

P.S. Don't criticise the fact that I don't have the original Win2000 CD, not everyone is in the same economic situation as you might be.

you said it didint auto run, and you couldnt boot to it... sounds like a bad copy of the cd to me.

but what is the actual problem? you never said why you are reinstalling...unless I just missed it. maybe we can fix that and avaoid the install al together?

Well, I'm thinking bad sectors (now that I think about it, gonna defrag) because it says something about a corrupt file in WINNT folder but never says what file it is (it says it in spanish too, probably has something to do with the fact that my brother once installed XP on another HD in spanish..) but i CAN access my WINNT folder.

Sorry for the double post, trying to bump the thread, don't see the bump feature, but I tried defragmenting, nothing...any other tips?

What is the manufacturer of the HD? I know Western Digital has a test util for their HDs that can verify whether the HD is good or not. Sounds like either bad install media or bad HD. You might also try a memory tester. I normally use one that I have linked on my site, http://www.zengerscorner.com its under tools on the left side called "memtester". You will need a bootable floppy to run it.

Note: Having a non-original CD is fine as long as you have the original license key (Which is generally on the side of the case for OEMs).

Maxtor is the manufactor of the HD. What is a memtester? And yeah, I have the original license key.

Thats the name of the program. You boot off a floppy and run the program and it cycles through your RAM reading and writting looking for faulty memory.

Actually, I bought a new HD, and got my Win2k CD from my brother everything is runnign smoothly now, thanks :)