First, there's no need whatsoever to zero-fill the hard drive first. Then, you can make some partitions with your preferred partitioning tool if you want, but ghost and other similar tools will handle that too. Might be a scratched disc or such, there are options to verify if you want. thanks for your prompt replies, as to, please refer below: i)ever since i bought my setup i have overwritten and overinstalled on it umpteen times, and besides i believe it will improve stability and performance even if to a minuscule degree. ii)the images were loaded on a seperate partition in the same disc. iii)A new related problem has surfaced; I have just created a Norton Ghost image and it exists in my D drive, but when i use Nero Burning Rom, choose the DVD rom (Boot) option and point to the image path in the Burn tab, no image is detected in the D drive. I have not renamed the image.gho file