Ubuntu 9.10 Installation Problem

[sleepingdogg]

Hello. I seem to be having the exact same problem described by some others when installing 9.10.
I burned the ISO on a CD 3 different times using ISORecorderV3 as described
in the "BurningIsoHowto" section of the "ubuntu.com" site. I followed the
instructions and when I load the CD and reboot my PC, I select the language
and then the "Install Ubuntu" option, but I can only seem to get to an
orange screen before everything stalls and goes no further. I even tried
the "alternate text-based installer" as recommended in this thread but it
did not help. I tried the F4 "Safe Graphics Mode" option but that did not
help. Same orange screen with a pointer that, sometimes, doesn't move when
I use the mouse. Everything just stays stuck on that screen. I just
finished trying the F6 options but nothing worked there either. Out of the
40+ attempts to install Ubuntu 9.10, I have had exactly 3 times where I
actually reached the "Welcome" screen. This happens after waiting at least
30 minutes or so. The buttons at the bottom of the screen are "Quit",
"Back", and "Forward". Problem is, all buttons are greyed out except
"Quit". When I attempt to press this button nothing happens. I seem to
have the proper specs on my old PC:

Dell Dimension XPS T500

BIOS Version - A07
Processor Type - Pentium (R) III
Processor Speed - 500 MHz
Cache RAM - 512 KB
System Memory - 128 MB
Memory Bank 0 - 128 MB SDRAM
Video Card - 8MB ATI XPERT 98D 3D AGP Graphics Card
Hard Drive - Western Digital 80 GB (WD800JB)
CD ROM Drive - ATAPI 8X DVD ROM


After about 5 minutes of the "pulsating" ubuntu logo on a black background,
and with my CD Rom Drive sounding like it is having an asthma attack (seems
to rev up and down during the entire 5 minutes), lines of text show on the
screen and multiple lines say, "Buffer I/O error on sr0, logical block
353416/353417". I don't know what this means for installation purposes.
Does anyone have any idea how I can install Ubuntu 9.10 on my PC? I should
probably mention that the HD is 80 GB and currently has nothing on it. I
formatted it for NTFS through Windows XP. Any help would be greatly
appreciated as I am to the point of abandonment of my Linux dream at this
point. I spent WAY too much time trying to do what I thought would be a
simple install and I'm ready to move on to something more user friendly at
this point. Thanks in advance.

[sleepingdogg]

So after carefully rereading the system requirements I came to the conclusion that maybe my hardware was NOT sufficient to install the version of Ubuntu 9.10 that I was trying to install. Specifically, the site states that the "Bare Minimum Requirements" were 64 MB of RAM. I have 128 MB of RAM and thought that this would not be a big deal since I have double the bare minimum. The "Recommended Minimum Requirements" are 384 MB of RAM. I decided to try the alternate version ("ubuntu-9.10-alternate-i386") that stated that I would not need as much RAM and it got me past my initial problem and now I have a new problem. I have a Western Digital 80 GB hard drive (WD800JB) that I would like to use. But when I get to the "Detect Disks" portion of the installation, I am asked for a driver for my HD. I do not have a driver for my HD and the drivers that are listed for me to choose from do not seem to be for my particular HD. So my question now is, is there an Ubuntu 9.10 driver for the WD800JB? If so, where can I find it? If not, how do I get around this so that I can partition my drive and complete the installation? Any help would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks in advance.