DVD Drives Won't Install programs!

[ckurt3]

Hello, I built my computer, and everything worked fine for awhile.  Now recently, my DVD drives refuse to install games/programs.  I tried to install World in Conflict, and Call of Duty 4 and neither of them worked.  The installshield popped up and it began installing, but the green light shut off on the front of my cd drive and the install progress ends up getting stuck half-way thru.  I bought a new drive because of this, my old one being a Sony, my new one being an LG with lightscribe... it doesn't work either.  It may be worthy to note they are both IDE not SATA.

Shortly after that, upon booting, I now get an error message saying "S.M.A.R.T. status bad backup and replace, hit F1 to continue".  Could this have anything to do with my problem?  My HDD is a 320gb Western Digital Caviar (SATA).  It is still under warranty, so I am going to presue getting a replacement. 

So, I decided to reformat.  bad idea, as Vista Premium OEM won't install now.  It gets stuck on "expanding files" at 7%.  So I'm stuck without my gaming rig, which is bad!  Can anyone help me, or give me any clues to what could be causing this?  It may also be worthy to note that my computer has been running quite sluggish lately, my FPS is CSS dropping, startup is taking longer and longer, etc.  I ran a virus scan, deleted a trojan and defragged my hard drive but still nothing.

Here's my specs:

MSI P6N SLI-FI (I know i cheaped out here )
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.8GHz
Nvidia EVGA Geforce 8800GTS(G92) 512mb x1
2048mb (1024mb x2) Dual Channel DDR2 533Mhz RAM (cheaped out again  )
420watt power supply (came with Xion II case)

Please help me!!!

[DaveLembke]

If you have a spare HD, I'd reinstall clean to that instead of the 320 that is failing. SMART detecting issues points finger to hard drive either malfunctioning or working outside its normal operating conditions...

Make sure that the jumper for MA/SL/CS are set correct for your cable as well. Most are set to CS, but some systems still use the master/Slave config. If CS ( Cable Select ) your cable will generally have it tagged as to the Master and Slave connectors, a standard 80-wire EIDE cable for 40-pins will require Master and Slaves specified by the jumpers on say 2 optical drives one being set to master and the other slave.

Your system is probably getting to 7% then it hits the damaged area of the drive and cant chug any further!!!

[patio]

You may also be experiencing power issues and or RAM problems...
If David's suggestion above is not successful these would be the next 2 items to check...

[ckurt3]

I don't have any other SATA drives, but I will talk to Western Digital, because I am still under a 3 year warranty with them.  Thanks alot for the help!