LILO error: "ran out of input data"?

[Brian Dunnette <brian@nadasutra.net>]

Hey all...
Just tried installing Debian 2.2 on an old K6 I had lying around... after wading
through LOTS of stuff (the installer crashes at random points, I get "unable to 
handle null dereference" or kernel paging errors, and I get segfaults when the
installer tries to unzip the base2_2 and drivers packages...) I thought I'd
finally gotten everything working -- LILO ran normally, and the installer,
for once, exited happily.  But then, upon rebooting, I get this:

LILO Loading Linux.
Uncompressing Linux...

ran out of input data

-- System halted

What, exactly, does this mean?  And how can I get rid of it?

Thanks,
Brian Dunnette