OS X install failing on 2 identical eMacs

[lhosbrough]

I have two identical VIN,eMac 700mhz/128MB/40GB/CD-ROM/NV11b.

There seemed to be hard drive problems with both. Had them swapped out for new. Now, during an install of 10.4 one fails on disc 1, "Error writing to file"....."software installation failed, install your software again".

The other makes it through disc 1, but bombs on disc 2 "There were errors installing the software, Please try installing again."

Everything is Apple issued, original RAM, just new hard drives. Have tried my archive copies of Tiger, and the original retail copies. They all look like they are in good shape and pass disc verification during the install.

One HD has no jumper whatsoever, so is designated as "Single" (western digital) this is the one that bombs during disc 1.

The other, in an attempt to troubleshoot, I left at cable select, and it gets through disc 1 just to fail on disc 2.

Any thoughts? I haven't zapped PRAM yet, so maybe that is next...

 

[lhosbrough]

possible solution

It looks like it may have just been the optical drives in each!

Tried an external USB cd drive for the one on cable select, install picked right up from where it kept bombing....and is still going strong.

Side note: I checked install log and the error was I/O.

I assumed disk controller on board, since disc 1 was verified by eMac. Could have just been flaky cd drives. They would never easily spit out the cd's during boot regardless of mouse-hold or eject.

Will update if this works for both.