Jaunty Install Fails During Format

[thisnamestoolong]

I had Jaunty successfully installed on my Asus G50V laptop, then decided to upgrade the hard drive. I successfully installed XP on a 10GB partition, then tried to install Ubuntu on the remaining 310 GB. I created a separate 5 GB partition for the swap, and attemped to install Ubuntu. I have tried the install several time and each time it starts formatting, gets to 5% immediately, sits there for about 5 minutes, and then fails without an error message. Any thoughts?

[thisnamestoolong]

I just tried formatting with GPartEd before beginning the install, and the installer crashed immediately after starting. I am really getting frustrated now... please help!!

[thisnamestoolong]

Both of these errors are repeatable and consistent -- I have tried installing from a couple different CDs in the hopes that I had a bad CD -- no such luck. The installation fails during format if I choose to do so, or during the install if I bypass formatting, almost right away.