"What protection did you come up with?"
Read Errors..
"What programe did you use to read and write it with?"
CloneCD V3.1.0.0..
"ad what settings?"
Reading:
4X Speed Read (probably go slower might work better)
Read Subchannel From Data - Ticked
Fast Error Skip - Ticked (0 Retries & Hardware Correction)
Writing:
Don't Repair Subchannel Data - Ticked
Always Close Last Session - Ticked (of course ..

)
"and did the backup work OK?"
Yep sure did, all 3 copies i have done..
"the best I got was 4% into the install"
Sounds like you have had more read errors then you should have, are there scraches on the cd your copying from?? I do have a full list of the read errors you should get when copying, all the unreadable sectors according to CloneCD ...
Later ..