Why won't Asterisk (or Linux) install on my computer? I'm trying to install Asterisk on a computer and have hit a brick wall.

I put in an AsteriskNow CD, hit enter at the welcome screen to tell it to start installing, and a few seconds later it stops and gives me an "unable to handle kernel paging request" or a "kernel NULL pointer dereference" error.

Computer stats:
Dell Dimension
Pentium 4, 1.8 Ghz
1 gig RAM
Two 40g hard drives
CDR and DVD drives
Windows XP installed

This seems well within the specification for the software.

I've tried noprobe and the other options suggested on the loading pages with no luck (although they cause slightly different error messages).

I have confirmed the md5 checksum on the AsteriskNow ISO and disc is right (and re-burned the discs several times at low speeds just to be sure).

I get the same error trying to install Trixbox and PBX in a Flash (two alternatives to AsteriskNOW) as well as simply installing CentOS Linux itself. A Knoppix live CD runs fine. I haven't tried installing any other distros.

I've tested both CD drives and they seem to work fine.

Checkdisk in XP isn't showing any errors on the drives.

Here's a photo of the error.

What should I try next?