Problem with base floppy images while installing 1.1

[A User <tomed@uncc.campus.mci.net>]

While installing debian 1.1 as a first time user, I got the following error messages on the third 1440 base image:

cpio: invalid header: checksum error
gunzip: stdin: invalid compressed data -- format violated
cpio: premature end of file.

I thought I might have bad sectors in the floppy, so I checked all floppies, downloaded the install, root, and base images again, and wrote them to the floppies. I tried both dd on a linux system and rawrite2 on a dos system. The same error came up at the same point every time in the same floppy image. The relevant line in the script seems to be:

floppy_merge | gunzip | cpio

but this is just a guess. Thank you for any and all help.

Tom Ed