Installer fails during OS reinstall - help needed.

Hello all, well my laptop died apperantly and it makes it to the white screen with the apple and then shuts off, I put in the installer discs that came with my laptop and hold down C to boot from CD, the first disc installed completley fine with no problems, it then restarts and then asks for disc number 2, when it does that it acts like its going to install and 10-15 seconds later I get, "The application installer quit unexpectedly" and it asks if I want to; Close/Report/Reopen and I hesitated to click anything and another 10-15 seconds it goes back to acting like it will install, then repeats between "Preparing for Installation" and the "Quit Unexpectedly" error, I tried pressing all 3 and nothing happens. As soon as I eject the CD it actually starts to install and the bar fills up blue, but then it tells me there was an error. I have no idea what to do. There are no files that I need, so if anyone can help me that would be greatly appreciated. I also have a Vista disc that I am willing to pop in and boot from CD, but I don't think it will work. Please help!!!!

If the installer is crapping out, you've most likely got a hardware issue. I'd guess bad RAM (did you upgrade this at some point?) or a bad HDD (more likely).

Start by running the Apple Hardware Test:

Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

If everything passes, then attempt a reinstall, but this time before you kick it off, make sure you open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu and actually do a full format on the system drive (zero out the disk).

Edited your thread with a bit more gracious of a title.

Ok, I just ran the test, all it said for the Test Results was "No Trouble found."
Any other suggestions?

I just ran the basic test...should I do an extended testing?

***** said:

Ok, I just ran the test, all it said for the Test Results was "No Trouble found."
Any other suggestions?

I just ran the basic test...should I do an extended testing?

Click to expand...

Run the extended. The basic is pretty much worthless.

war Thibew

Ok, the extended testing just completed, same results "No trouble found." what to do now

So with DISC #1 in, I went to Disc Utility, and before I do anything is this correct.

Select HD (there is only 1 HDD but which do I chose) 74.5GB ST....AS Media OR Macintosh HD which is right below that option