just for the record (for future googlers): I dusted off my CD, tried again; no luck. while still in the installer (set installation phase): -removed CD -copied the /4.8/i386 directory from CD onto a flash drive on another machine -replaced CD and plugged in usb -pointed the installer to the usb directory this was by far the quickest, easiest workaround; thank you Raimo.
just a bit of extra verbosity: I had the OS set to "OTHER" in BIOS, and kernel panicked (bsd.mp). Set the BIOS to LINUX and it boots. That's just a comment though, not looking for help on this, and not assuming this workaround is exactly successful until I can read up on it. thank you all for the replies. had I more time I would have turned this into a "science project". over and out. -Scott
