Installer hangs/fails

[Michael Abbott <mabster@internode.on.net>]

Hi

This morning I started the process of installing Debian on my DELL
Inspiron 5150.  I'm booting the installer off the official 3.1 i386 CD.

If I try to use 'linux26' as my parameters, the following displays when 
the installer hangs during the hardware detection phase:

  Detecting hardware to find CD-ROM drives
  84%
  Loading module 'ide-disk' for 'Linux ATA DISK'...

Any idea what could be causing this and any possible work-around?  If
this isn't the appropriate place to ask this kind of question could you
please point me in the right direction :) ?

Also, I tried to just boot the installer without parameters in which 
case it actually gets past the hardware detection.  Instead, it fails 
just afterward with the following:

  [!!] Load installer components from CD

  There was a problem reading data from the CDROM. Please make sure it
  is in the drive.  If retrying does not work, you should check the
  integrity of your CDROM.

  Failed to copy file from CDROM. Retry?

Thought I'd get the heads-up on this one too just in case it happens 
when I try and install the 2.6 kernel.  I've had this same issue on a 
previous install of Debian about 6 months ago (which made me switch to a 
netinst).  Are there known issues with the CD on this laptop-type (it's 
a HL-DT-ST DVD +RW GCA-4040N) or should I be checking the media?

Thanks,
- Mab