thank you for that advice, i am well AWARE of that. I would make a copy of the 2003 Server CD using NERO. Copy to HDD first and then to a new good quality CDR using data verification and see if the new CD is any better.
I have XP on drives C: and D: and had Server 2003 INSTALLED to a folder on drive F: for a while.ok i might GIVE that a try thanx MAC.