Hard Drive woes

Ok strange one this but ill explain, I first noticed problems when I tryed to download XP Service Pack 2 RC1, the file would download but when It unpacked it said it was corrupt, I tryed a few more times and got the same error, I tryed the express install and got simalar errors, I try and download from another machine and its fine, I copy that file over to this machine and it says its corrupt :confused:.

Also with other large files im now getting CRC errors, for example I have a large rar file filled with mp3s that I know used to work, its been sat on my second hdd for a week or so and now im getting crc errors on 80% of the files in the archive :(.

Ive tryed downloading to the 2 drives in my system and also put another drive from another box in and got the same probs, ive tryed 3 different installs of windows on 2 different hdds ( one PATA and one SATA ), ive tryed the onboard VIA SATA controller and also the Silicone image controller on my mobo and had the same errors.

Tonight I come to the PC and after half a hour use its very unstable and then wouldnt boot, removing all devices apart from CPU, Ram, Vid, Sound and 2x SATA drives seems to have restored instability but the files are still coming up as corrupt, havent yet downloaded SP2 again to see if it corrupts.

System is as follows :

Abit KV8 MAX 3
XP 3200+
2x Sticks of Mushkin PC3500 ram, currently have 1x stick of corsair in atm
Radeon 9800 Pro
SB audigy ZS
WD Raptor 36Gb
Maxtor SATA 160 GB
Sony 4x DVD RW
Lite on 52x CDRW
520 Watt Aero cool PSU
Akasa Fan Controler
Matrix Orbital USB LCD
Floppy drive
Webcam
USB Keyboard
Usb mouse
Speedtouch USB modem

Ive listed everything there as when I also removed the USB devices apart from keyboard and mouse and now have stability, so could be that or optical drives?

Anyway please help, its doing my nut in :(

Virus?

If your system is stable after removing stuff pehaps part fo the problem is your PSU, is it powerfull enough to run everything? is it "on its way out"?

{Edit: If your wondering how i get file corruption from a dodgy PSU then i work out that if the Hard Drive isnt getting enougn power then its bound to cause problems of some sort.}

PSU isnt to old and the rails look good

Try coping a file over with the other compnents out, see if that corrupts. If it doesn, then i have NO idea and you should probably set fire to it or something...:D

current probs are prolly virus related as im riddled from a 5 min session online when i installed windows and was updating virus defs :/

Well although you've changed it, I still think it's the memory - it's something all data will go through when being dealt with. However, you'd probably get other instabilities.

Get some bootable drive testing software (seagate do a reasonable one.) Perhaps the motherboard is nackered.

Also I hope you're running the latest chipset drivers.

lol, How can you get a vrius on 5 minutes online? I haven't had a virus in months...and I scan my disk about once a month through another PC. This Hard Drive doesn't even have Anti-Virus on it.

Ill give memtest a go to check the ram