reinstalling win xp takes forever

i was trying to reinstall my win xp. it took forever to finish. my first try give me a message saying that a file was missing then the second try it never finish, waited 5 hours. so i close and try again later on, wait another 5 hours. it just won't finish. everytime i open the stepup i get a message "stepup cannot continue because the version of win on your computer is newer than the verion on the CD. To erase the newer version and install the older version restart the computer. boot from the cd and follow the instruction for newer installation." but the installation still continue after this message.

i try booting.
restart then press F12 and select IDE CD-ROM Device.
then open up winnt32.exe and so on and on.

same result. what else shall i do?

Could it be that your XP CD is damaged? I don't know if there is a way to check it for consistency, but it behaves very strangely.

Hello, to me, that time indicantes one thing only: damaged hard drive. Try another one, it must not take more than 1 hour to complete instalation even in a Pentium III