I am installing Windows Xp using a Windows Xp boot disk and network but not from the CD Rom.

The boot disk contains Autoexec.bat and in this program contains a smartdrv.exe, the path to the installation files on the server and path to the answer file unattend.txt also on the server.

The installation gets past the autoexec.bat stage and freezes on the screen

"Please wait while setup copies files to your hard disk"

The hard drive light is on the machine but nothing appears to be copying over and it will stay on this screen for hours.

Can anyone help, have I missed anything in the boot disk or autoexec.bat file?
How do I get past this screen?

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=296814

Find and download smart.exe the following search might help in google
index apache smartdrv.exe

Partition 2gig off and format as fat32
Boot as normal using your Win98 bootdisk
Copy smartdrv.exe to a floppy after its finished booting type in a dos command

smartdrv.exe [enter]

Type in your normal stuff, it might look like its frozen again but give it a minute and it will start.

you could also try checking the disk. My little brother used to play with them, last time I installed WinXp, it froze during the BIOS installation. My solution was just to clean the WinXP CD.