I have a problem with installing Encarta. I bought MS Encarta last year and installed it with no problems. I used it many times after installation. Recently my computer “went” down” and I lost everything. I had to have the motherboard replaced. Since then I have tried to reinstall Encarta and have been unable to do so. When I try to install Encarta and put the CD in the D: drive, the following happens. I get the Setup window, then after pressing “next” and accepting the license agreement, the following message appears “An I/O error occurred while installing a file. This is normally caused by bad installation media or a corrupt installation file”. I can go no further. What is the problem? The Encarta CDs are the original CDs that I bought. Is it something with Encarta? Or a fault somewhere else in the system? It has been suggested that I should re-install Windows 95 but I am frightened that I may lose all the data that I have on my computer as I did when I had to have the motherboard replaced.

The term ‘I/O’ stands for Input/Output. The error message that you are receiving means that there is a problem receiving the data from the CD. This could be caused by mear dust on the CD or maybe a more permanent problem like the CD is scratched. With a clean, soft cloth give the underside of the CD (the reverse side to the label) a few wipes to get rid of any dust and try it again. If this doesn’t work, check whether there are any scratches on the CD by tilting it under proper lighting on the reverse side of the CD (this is from where all the data is read). Many things such as mishandling when loading it into the CD-ROM drive could cause scratches. Badly damaged surfaces on CD’s cause the reader to mistrack and therefore missing data. From the information you have provided me, I don’t feel that reinstalling Windows 95 would help.