3/4 of the way through the install the reboot black screen : The disk drive for / is not ready yet or not present continue to wait; or press S to skip mounting or M for manual recovery . neither works, was running Ubuntu 10.4.

How about a little more information?

Was this a netboot install, Alt install CD, Live CD, Live DVD?

You say 3/4 way through the install. What does this mean? What was the installer doing?

What black reboot screen? Why is it rebooting?

Did you run a md5sum check on the image you downloaded? Are you installing from a disk, usb stick, ISO booted with grub?

Was running 10.04. Ok, what are you running on now?

Is this a tablet type device, laptop, desktop box? Does it have any specs (no, the name and expecting folks to know about it is not good enough)? The video card would be nice to know, cpu, ram, that type of thing.