[PLUG] Ubuntu live disk hangs shortly after loading

[Richard C. Steffens]

My wife decided she'd like to know more about the hardware on her 
machine without opening up the box. So we booted the Ubuntu 10.04 live 
CD in try it out mode. I successfully ran lshw -html and saved the 
output to the Ubuntu desktop. I then tried mounting her hard drive so I 
could put a copy of the html file there. The machine hung. I rebooted, 
ran lshw, and tried logging into my Comcast e-mail account through 
Firefox. I got as far as the Comcast page before logging in and the 
machine hung. I tried once more, this time trying to mount a drive on 
one of my running machines. My wife's machine hung. All we wanted was 
the model number of the mother board, which I wrote down during one of 
the attempts.

Her machine booted back up in XP with no problems.

Any ideas what would cause Ubuntu to hang in such a simple situation?

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens