I tried switching the memory sticks and I got a bit further, but it was no go. I then removed what turned out to be the smaller of the two memory sticks and I have been pretty stable ever since. What do you think? I say I got some bad memory. Now for Windows 98 it might have worked, but NT/XP is more particular about it's hardware.
So now I have 256M instead of 384M. Since memory is so cheap, I may just get another 256M and stick it in.
This Windows XP Pro is the slowest install I have ever seen. It has said 39 minutes to complete for several hours now. The fact that I disabled all memory caching may have something to do with it. I will change that the next time I reboot and see what goes.
I'm headed to bed soon. I hope everyone who is still reading has a good night. If you read this in the AM, then I hope it WAS a good night! :-)