I get the Directory success page but when I click the button at the bottom to Save and Finish I get an error message:

Fatal Error
E-Blah Install and Upgrade System
There was an error installing or upgrading your forum ...
Cannot write to /Prefs, please check your Settings.pl file and try again.

I have set my /cgi-bin/forum folder to 777 as per the install instructions if there is an error, and have gone through and manually set sub-folders Prefs, BHits and Hits as 777 as well for the set up process.

I have also tried using a specific file location for the variable $Root.  It is/was, /home/shb8_276/www.myWebSite.com/cgi-bin/forum .  This did not work either.

My Settings.pl looks like this:

# What is the directory that Settings.pl is located in?
$root = ".";

# This should be the only line you need to edit for Avatars, uploads, and templates directories
$bdocsdir2 = "/home/shb8_276/www.myWebSite.com/public_html/blahdocs";
####################################################
# DO NOT MODIFY ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE!          #
####################################################

$bversion = 1; # PRE-SETUP Version

# Full DIR to ./{NAME} (Directories; no trailing slash: /)
# If $root is correct, these shouldn't need editing
$code      = "$root/Code";       # Code
$boards    = "$root/Boards";     # Boards
$prefs     = "$root/Prefs";      # Prefs
$members   = "$root/Members";    # Members
$messages  = "$root/Messages";   # Messages
$languages = "$root/Languages";  # Languages
$modsdir   = "$root/Mods";       # Mods Directory

# URL to /blahdocs/{NAME} (URL-Directories; no trailing slash: /)
$images     = "/blahdocs/images";    # images
$buttons    = "/blahdocs/buttons";   # buttons
$simages    = "/blahdocs/Smilies";   # Smilies
$avsurl     = "/blahdocs/Avatars";   # Avatars
$uploadurl  = "/blahdocs/uploads";   # uploads
$templatesu = "/blahdocs/template";  # template
$bdocsdir   = "/blahdocs";           # blahdocs Directory

# Full DIR to the {NAME} directory (Directory; no trailing slash: /)
$avdir     = "$bdocsdir2/Avatars";   # Avatars
$uploaddir = "$bdocsdir2/uploads";   # uploads
$templates = "$bdocsdir2/template";  # template

Update

got it to write to Prefs and create the files there, but I get the error that it can't write to /Boards now...

I had to go in and delete all the .htaccess files manually before it would write to /Prefs.

The Board seems to be there, but nothing is written to /Boards now.  When I delete the .htaccess files again and retry it gives me the message that the board already exists.  

I open Blah.pl in my browser but it did not create the administrator profile and I cant log in and get an error when i try to retrieve password that the user does not exist.  

I tried upgrading the board as well by running Setup.pl again and i get :
#  Rebuilt the mail database (9.2) ...
# Restructured the members list (9.5) ...
# Rebuilt permissions (9.5) ...
# Converted calendar events to new events format (9.8) ...
# Rebuilt the OLD members database (10.3.5) ...
# Rebuilt member database (9.8) ...
# Rebuilt the OLD members database (10.3.5) ...
# Rebuilt member database (9.81) ...
# Created message database (9.82) ...
# Created Message Icons Database (9.84) ...
# Converted Message Icons (9.84) ...
# Rebuilt member list ...
# Closed setup file ...
Please wait ...
Your forum is being upgraded, this could take a few minutes ...

DO NOT REFRESH OR LEAVE THIS PAGE UNTIL UPGRADE IS COMPLETE

Upgrade Finished...


And at this point i go to the board but i get :
You do not have the right credentials to view this board, or there is no board to be found. If you are a guest, you may have to register before any forums are available.

Weird....

I did a full reinstall following all the instructions and doing the removal of the .htaccess files before clicking the create board button but still got the 'can not write to /Boards' error

What am i doing wrong?

Update

I got it working.

Had to install it three times but finnaly...

uploaded all files and had to use my hosting companies on line file manager to chmod to 777 755 etc and had to also delete all the .htacess files created by Filezilla upon upload.... which interestingly enough are not visible in Filezilla but only through the hosting web based file manager.

Once I did all this and made:
/forum, /Mods, /Prefs, /BHITS, /Hits, / and lastly /members all 777 it installed with no problems.

Glad you got it sorted, was just going to offer to fix it.

Well the fun continues...
now that i got all that working and everything i can't post.... i get these fatal errors:

1       
User: Administrator      Time of Error: Less than a minute ago      Blah.pl?v-post/b-fea/m-/post-1/
Cannot open the message data file: 1210973276.txt
Bad file descriptor

2      
User: Administrator      Time of Error: 3 minutes ago      Blah.pl?v-post/b-fea/m-/post-1/
Cannot open the message data file: 1210973054.txt
Bad file descriptor

Any suggestions?

Go into your Admin Center and Rebuild All Boards

tried that just now and still getting the same message... I wonder if it has to do with chmod on the source directory?  Where are the message data txt's saved?

never mind... changed the chmod of /messages to 777 and all is well... wondering though how this will affect the security of my msg board?  seeing as so much is wide open.