Ubuntu will not install

[ex-para]

I have tried several ISO discs, some bought and some downloaded versions of Ubuntu (10.4 10.10 and 11 what ever it is, plus others ) and none will install onto a laptop. On each occasion the install gets to the USA or UK keyboard and then just hangs. The laptop has win7 and is a Sony. The try it out part works OK but I don’t think this has much bearing on the situation. Any ideas please.

[mastablasta]

how are you trying to install it ? via wubi or side by side? what are the system specs?

edit: i just remembered that there used to be a similar case back in time and user solved it with using alternate CD to install. alternate CD has a text based installer (not graphical). would help if you gave the specs and any error messages though...

[ex-para]

Thanks for reply, what I should have mentioned is the fact that win7 will not boot, it also just hangs. The laptop was given to me because of this and I thought if I did a dual boot with Linux like I have with other computers I would have a working computer. Using grub boot and other repair discs has not helped but all have given lots of errors The quickest way out of might be to go into hard drive partitions and delete every thing and try from there. If that fails I have a disc that I have used before that cleans the hard drive thoroughly but takes hours.

[Mark Phelps]

The "lots of errors no matter what you do" scenario you described is often an indication of a failing, or failed, hard drive.

If you can remove the hard drive from this PC, you should do that and connect it, via adapter, to another PC and see what is on the drive.

IF the drive won't mount, or if there is no filesystem it can find, then likely, the drive itself is trashed.

Also, if you can connect the drive to a Windows PC, the major drive manufacturers generally provide a downloadable utility you can run to check out the status of the drive.