Installation Issues with new hardware

[stackbaxter]

okay...

i'm trying to install a new mobo (xfx 8200 amdx2 athalon 6000+ 3.1g)
i have a 320 g vista sp1 drive, as well as a 20 g maxtor linux ubuntu 8.10, i'll try to keep this linux oriented as this is the forum, but i have more severe hardware issues that i'm trying to sort.
so i plug everything in, i'm upgrading from a compaq presario intel 1.6 g, 4 g ram, and the linux drive tries to boot, but then jumps me into a shell. i'm still a newb when it comes to linux so bear with me, i also tried to boot from the ubuntu disk, but it also brings me to the same shell. unsure how to proceed, the xfx support told me that 8.10 does not support the hardware but 8.11 does...?

help....?

[stackbaxter]

forgot to mention that when i boot with the new mobo i'm doing it bare bones, 2 g of ram, and no cards or anything.

thx