>=20
> Every time I try it, I get about 9/10th's of the way thru the base.tgz
> unpacking/install, and it reports a SCSI Read Error #5, and then hangs.
> (Force Quit locks up the system, and I can't do anything else, so each
> time I have just had to hit the reset button).

This happened to mee too when I tried to install... It has been discussed
before, check the Archives, wherever they are.
I zas told that it is an installer error. What I did is install "small
pieces", not all tarballs together, starting fro the kernel!!!
Copy then the tgz to the BSD partition without installing them
The try to boot with the "broken" installation and install the packages.
there is an option of tar which decompreses allowing the overwriting of
files in use, whcih I don't remember at the moment.
After all was finished, viol=E0 all was ok.

Cross your fingers, have patience

Ric