xp installs fine on even 400mhz computers. My suggestions as others have suggested...
turn on your computer and get into the bios

usually delete button or f2 or f8 etc... depending on your motherboard maker.

reset computer to defaults and change the boot order so that your cd is the first boot device.

grab your cd and turn it around and look for any smudges or fingerprints. clean the surface so that everything is eliminated.

boot the cd and install xp.

if you cannot boot you can try copying the files to your hard drive and installing from there.

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

to make a bootdisk.

make sure you use smartdrive.

you can get it from any win98 cd or you can get it here
http://boss.iele.polsl.gliwice.pl/pu...ws98/OldMSDOS/

after you boot your computer run smartdrive and you will get incredible hd performance.

just so you understand what i mean. a friend copied the i386 folder to the hard drive without smartdrive. took a while and when done he did the "dir" command to look for a file and it took over 30 minutes before the computer even displayed anything.

do it after running smartdrive and it takes half a sec.

you get the picture.
make sure you run smart drive before installing xp just incase.

if xp fails to load after all this you will need to contact microsoft for a replaement disc as your may be defective.

you can also borrow a friends xp disc as long as it's the same version your xp key should work fine.

if it installs you have your answer

good luck and keep us updated