Installation issues: BomFatalError

[blotsome]

I'm trying to help out my friend who has a iBook G4. Here is the background. The computer died one day. Most likely it was a memory error. The memory couldn't just be switched out because it was soldered onto the logic board, so he had to send it back to Apple. They sent it back with a new hard drive with all of his data gone, and in place, a new version of OSX. He was mad that he lost the info, and was also mad that apple put on a bunch of crappy software like Garage band, plus he thought his computer was going slower, so he tried to install the original version of OSX that came with the computer. That installation failed. He tried to re-install the new version that apple had sent, and that failed as well. And now he has a useless laptop that won't load any OS.

 

So he gives it to me to fix. Here is the deal, I tried repairing the disk, I tried erasing it and repartioning it, and that doesn't work. The DVD validifies just fine, but 5 minutes into the actual installation, it fails. "There were errors installing the software, please try again." The installer log says "localhost : BomFatalError - cpio read error: bad file format" and "localhost : Install failed: Some files for Essentials may not have been written correctly." I have tried doing a custom install with no extras selected. Still no luck. Anyway, google is also no help. There are others who have experienced this, but no answers. Any ideas? The people on the Hackintosh forums were quite helpful in getting my OSx86 up and running, I figure this is a good place to ask about legit stuff as well.

 

Thanks.