I can't install it because it doesn't recognize the HDD. I can use it you see because I have the CD in the drive, but if I remove the CD it isn't on my computer anymore.
To shed a bit more light on *why* you can play with the CD, but it doesn't install...
Ubuntu and all of it's different flavors have two versions you can burn onto a disk, a Live CD and an Alternate Installation CD. The Alternate Install contains all the files, just no pretty GUI, so you must type in commands and/or settings; it also typically takes longer.
A Live CD, which it what you were using, contains the entire Ubuntu OS along with a GUI. The purpose of this is so you can burn a copy to CD, then load it up and try it out before you decide to install it. Every time you boot from the CD, you are, in simplest terms, installing the CD to your RAM, so it's temporary. That's also why it takes a long time to load and perform certain actions--it doesn't have the speed of a HDD.
In order to load it onto your HDD, you must click on the Install icon that will appear on the upper left part of the Desktop after the Live CD has loaded. It will walk you through a few steps and you can point and click with the mouse, with minimal text-based interaction. You can also install from the Alternate Install CD, but you will not have the ease of point-and-click, everything will require you to type in settings.
As for ubuntuforums.org, I agree that it would be an ideal place to post. The people there are incredible with helping others. I found them about a year ago when I first explored Ubuntu and have stayed ever since
