8.04 LTS "Try Ubuntu..." hangs.

While it's booting up press escape and it should drop down out of the splash screen and give you information on the boot sequence.
Could you please do that and tell us what the last few messages are before it freezes?

While it's booting up press escape and it should drop down out of the splash screen and give you information on the boot sequence.
Could you please do that and tell us what the last few messages are before it freezes?

First of all... THANK YOU, for taking up this issue... it's very good to be in touch with someone who has experience with this!
I did what you suggested:

1st event -- Pop up placard: You are leaving the graphical boot menu and starting the text mode interface. (clicked OK).
2nd event -- Black screen with "boot: _". (I then restarted & booted back to HD0 so I could report results to you).

I meant during the bootup itself after you choose to 'Try Ubuntu' if that's OK. :)

Will do... Have to do some family stuff, then back at you as soon as I can.

A: 1st event is Language Selection screen with 30-sec countdown and English highlighted: At this point, hitting either Esc or Enter key brings about

B: The "splash" screen? (Ubuntu Logo above list of 5 options, the first highlighted:
                        Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer
                        Install Ubuntu
                        Check CD for defects
                        Test memory
                        Boot from first hard disk
Pressed "Enter" key ("Try Ubuntu") and followed immediately with "Esc" keypress, but event C intervened, and repeated "Esc"s brought no response.

C: Small box appeared, containing "Loading Linux Kernel" above a standard loading progress bar that filled to 100% within about 1/3 of a second, the box then vanishing, revealing the Ubuntu logo just above the custom back and forth activity indicator cycling away. Repeated "Esc"s... with no response until a minute later when indicator froze.

I rebooted the CD several times, trying variations in keypress timing, but to no avail.

Sure hoping there's some kind of clue here that you might be able to use in digging me out of an apparent dead end.
Thanks for your interest, Akria.

I'm back in the saddle at 1450hrs (Austin, TX time). whast should I do next?

I meant to spell, "What should I do next?"

Is anyone else following this issue who might tell me what to do next?

Nobody there? Will try tomorrow after 1300 Central.

I'm back at the puter now... Can anybody help me with this issue?

Sorry about that, had a friend around for the night so was kept occupied.

It seems that my memory's faulty, so instead of pressing escape on that screen can you edit the boot options on the initial screen for the LiveCD (I think you press F6, but it might differ; it should say something like 'Other options' on the bottom of the screen, below all the 'Try Ubuntu' etc.) so that the 'quiet' and 'splash' parameters are removed?

VOILA! - EUREKA! - BINGO!
Akria... I removed the splash parameter from the end of the boot line and pressed the Enter key, and at last was able to watch the progress as the various settings were being made. I noticed that the event just preceding the system hang was "Init: Unable to execute '/bin/sh' for rc-default: No such file or directory"

Then, of course, came the hang with: "udev-event[6723]: run-program: '/sbin/modprobe' abnormal exit".

Back in XP, I brought up the "Ubuntu Installation Guide" ( https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/installation-guide/i386 ) and checked out Section 5 "Booting the Installation System" in which the "Troubleshooting the Installation Process" section contains a paragraph dealing with "Boot Configuration". It pointed out that if the computer has more than 512meg RAM that the installer may get confused and take a dive, and suggested including the argument, "mem=512m". I booted back to the CD and this time deleted the "quiet" and "splash" arguments, then added the "mem=512m" argument in their place and pressed the "Enter" key. IT WORKED! After all the booting process lines ran, the Ubuntu bird desktop appeared in all its glory! Now I'm going to install the system on disk and I'll let you know how I do.

Thanks for your help and patience with this true newbie who's looking forward to being a satisfied user and enthusiastic Ubuntu advocate!

I'll be grateful if you'll stay tuned from time to time as, knowing Murphy's Law, I may need some further mentoring here and there.
Thanks again for your help in making this a PROBLEM SOLVED!