Page 1 of Windows XP installation problem!!!

I formatted my laptop`s hard drive and am trying to put XP on it. I use the 6 doot disks that u download from Microsh*tes website and then it asks for the xp cd. I then get the option of formatting the drive different ways (fat32, ntfs....). After i have formatted the drive i keep getting the message that a ".SIF" file has been corrupted of something and that setup can`t continue! Anybody got any ideas?

Is this a genuine Win XP CD or a copy from your mate Dave?

It`s a copy.
I also meant to point out that i have tried to boot from the cd but a message appears saying " No Emulation Booting".

Well, with copies there is always the chance of files being corrupt. Have you got a fast enough connection to download the program and burn onto a CD from Kazaa?
I have never heard of this problem before and have had a look around the net, this is the only real solution I found and I am not sure it relates directly to your problem:

"The subtle problem is that the TXTSETUP.INF on the boot disk images is different to the one in the SP. I replaced the one on the floppy with the one on the CD and setup managed to copy successfully."

Cheers

The disk worked ok on my other computer.

Do you have any other versions of Windows? I.e. did the laptop come with 98? If so you could install that and upgrade from within Windows.