When that release of xp came out about a year ago it seemed like 50% of the user\'s in #Winxp on efnet where saying the same thing. I remember typing to someone on how he fixed it but it was sketchy and i did comprehend it too well. you can however probably boot into safe mode and place the drivers. from there you would have to work with it but atleast it would be in safe mode. Or you could boot off the disc and choose the recovery console and place the file\'s from there. Or you could install the same copy again, watch for what it\'s barking about, take note of that and then after you boot up the second install, install those files into you first install. It\'s a pain i know but it could very well work.
as far as the actual cd i dont know. I remember tons and tons of people saying they got 2 error message\'s everytime off the same thing i know someone else you used. However when i installed that for him no error msg\'s appeared.
Nothing is wrong with it i dont believe, with the image i mean. However it could of been corrupted by the plotters against p2p by now or it could be your software. The one he used was written with DJ or Nero, had to be one of those 2. It was also burned out less than 2 days after release on the net...which would be very close to a year by now. After a year goes by who knows what could be wrong. Maybe even a possibility that a transfer corrupted a packet or 2.
If i were you i would ? the 2 files. Open them up however you have to :-P out of the i386 dir and check them. if they are working then you good to go. Now if you cannot open with what you believe should open them then i cannot help you farther on that on this board and most likely it is corrupt anyhow.
download another image without a resume, regardless whether your first one resumed or not, do a file comparison and if they match then try it. Now don\'t download a different type of image than what you already have whether it is a .img, .iso, .cdi, .nrg, .bin/cue, .nrg etc... get the same format.
also make sure the image is complete by making sure all the normal stuff is there like the setuptools and all that. and if there is a dir named BOOTFLOP or something containing the 6 boot floppy image\'s then it is NOT a orginal and you sol.