I am at the last step where it said "start services" and finish..

I heard this part took a few minutes, but it is really pegging the harddrive.. is that normal.

I should say this is a new install

should be. but if its still running and hasn't stopped, then i'd say there's an issue. look in task manager and see if any processes are pegged.

system idle process is pegged

something is wrong!!
Its still pegged out

any advise,, i just rebooted

System idle process is your processor capacity that is not being used by an active process. If you have 4 applications using 35% of your processor, your system idle process will show 65%...the amount of remaining free processor capacity.

thanks i feel dumb now..