I downloaded sp2 directly to the laptop. I also made a CDROM copy on my brand new Compaq PC and ran it in the laptop. Now I get a "file corrupted" message. This is for the sp2 Pro program.
Could I have some bad RAM chips?
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Bad download or a bad burn, both of which can be caused by bad RAM or bad blocks on the hard drive, inconsistent power supply or even corrupt page file. I always download load the service packs on a known good machine and then transfer via usb/cd and then run it from the hard drive.
I suggest you use http://www.memtest.org/ to test the memory, get the iso onto a known good machine and burn a CD, it will boot the machine (assuming it's set to boot from cd) and run at least 2 sets of tests.
Run chkdsk /f /r on the hard drive as well.