having a problem installing HL2

[TheBaron]

I'm having an install issue with half-life 2 on my family's machine. When installing the game, it will be working on a file (and i can watch the file's size increase towards how big the installer says it should be) and then suddenly it will stop, the file will revert to zero, and it will start over. if this happens enough times, it starts bitching about corrupt cabs and all this other bull****. now this machine is kind of old
1800+ on a KG7 (AMD 761)
with a generic 52x cd-rom and a 32x cd burner
with the burner I can't get past the first file on the first cd, and with the regular cdrom i seem to get stuck on "half life 2 base content.gcf" and then it starts complaing about how hl2.cab is messed up. This bothers the hell out of me, and its even more annoying since I cant just download the caches through steam since I have a Hard copy.
is it possible this is a CD read error issue? I'm considering going out to compusa and getting a new dvdrom to try installing from that, but im really kind of iffy as to whether that could actually work or not

EDIT: Discs appear to be spotless

[TheBaron]

well I'd still like to know what the hell this problem is because if it happens one I'm sure it'll happen again, but for now I've gotten around it

I used Alcohol to make images of all 5 cds (theres a wasted hour!) and installed from there. of course I couldn't make ISOs, so at first i thought this didn't work either, but It ended up working just fine with mdf's, plus now I have a backup of the cds. works for me

[^Ben]

Did you install counter strike with it?

Apparently if you don't install CS it throws up errors halfway through the installation.

[KingFish]

I second what Ben says. I had to endure four failed installs with flawless looking cd's only to get the corrupt cab error message. Install the crappy counter strike game too. It fixed my probs. Mine would always fail on cd #4 though.

[GrayFox]

I recomend (if ur not on a 56k) just getting it via steam
www.steampowered.com
just regester ur key and the steam delivery system will download it for u :D

[TheBaron]

3 things:
1, i got it working, which i think i mentioned.
2, i was installing it with steam, that had absolutely no bearing on the installation not working
3, i tried getting it through steam, when i tried to register the key it said "this is a cd copy, the game must be installed first" or something like that

[GhOst]

It Comes Up Wuth This Error.....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/fafghost/grrrrrrr.gif

I Have A Perfctly Real Copy And Still Does It Even If I leave All Settings As They Were...

Please Help!

GhOst

[Black Hawk]

I've seen that error happen elsewhere but I don't remember if there was a solution. I'll post back if I find it.

[^Ben]

www.steampowered.com

They have a customer support section for a reason.