problems installing windows vista

I am trying to install on a 80gb wester digital hdd. Here is my problem. I have 2 of the 80gb hdd. the first time I tried to install it went ok and worked. I did all the windows updates and installed all my programs. Then after a day or 2 when I went to boot up it said disc read error. press control alt delete to restart. I did. same message over and over. Reinstalled windows. installed fine and the exact same senario occured. now I want to install to the other hard drive to see if was just a bad drive. Now when i'm trying it is painfully slow to do anything. So my question is...is there a setting somewhere in the motherboard or bios somewhere that is saving a bad setting that is preventing me from installing windows now? or does everything get erased when I try to install to a new drive?