Corrupt hivesys.inf file while installing XP

[sgiguy]

Hey all, I'm a newbie to the group so i'd like to start off by saying hi.

I'm having a problem installing XP Home on a HDD that previously had Win95 on it. I tried to install over 95, but that didn't work. So I wiped the drive and tried to install XP. After the copy files finishes, the install dies on me giving me this error:

Line 1 corrupt in hivesys.inf. Windows was not installed. Hit F3 to restart.

From what I've read, this is the part of the installation where it tries to create the registry keys, correct? Now, why am I getting this error? The XP CD that i'm using is a legal copy of XP and was not hacked. Is it that my XP CD is no good anymore? I'm not very sure where to start with this problem...any help would be very much appreciated!!

Thanks in advance.

Josh

[gosh]

make a boot disk with cdrom support then make a flat (copy the files to the hard drive), run smartdrv, then run winnt.exe and go from there. ms article 311755 i think shows the steps to make a flat.

-gosh