[SOLVED] Can't get it to install

I've been trying to install Zorin OS on an ~2005 HP Pavilion for the past week and just can't get to the install screen. (I've also tried it on a ~2008 dell laptop with the same non-results.) I've trying both the core and the lite versions and just don't know what to try next. The disc starts to boot up, but it just sits there at the Z icon.

There have been a couple of time when it looked like I got to the Zorin desktop, but there was no menu/taskbar at the bottom and no cursor.

Any ideas on why I'm having such trouble? I was able to install LinuxMint on the same Pavilion machine without a problem.

Addendum: just tried again. After a long wait, the machine kicked back to console with the message: "Kernel panic - not syncing: attempted to kill init! exitcode=0x00007f00". After some other dumps (CPU:, Hardware:, Trace:) there was a final message "drm_kms_helper: panic occurred, switching back to text console."

A few questions:

1. Which browser did you use and did you use any download accelerator?

2. Did you verify the md5 sum of the isos?

3. Did you try installing with DVD or USB?

thanks the reply, Swarfendor --

It turns out: my machine seems to have a DVD boot drive problem. The machine has two optical drives. I repeatedly told the BIOS to boot from the first optical drive, but nothing happened. On a whim, I put Zorin Core in the first drive (that I thought it was trying to boot from) and Zorin Lite in the second drive. Even though the BIOS was set to boot from the first drive, it somehow decided to boot from the second drive and I was able to install Zorin Lite. This is weird because I was able to install LinuxMint from the first drive and boot from Hiren's boot CD from the first drive.

So: my problem seems to be solved.

Great! Have marked as [SOLVED]