Debian install/boot problems

[squish]

Hi

I'm new to linux and I just tried installing Debian on an old computer
specs: Celeron 466 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 6.5GB Maxtor and 1.2 GB seagate hard drives

It installs fine, but then when it reboots and goes to run off the hard drive, it just hangs.

The grub loader appears to work - it flashes up too quickly for me to read whatever it says.
I've installed grub into the MBR.
I've tried so many different partition techinques - all in one partition, lost of different partitions.

At this point it seems to hang, there is a small amount of hard drive activity for the next 2 minutes, but nothing ever comes up on the screen.

I've installed win XP on this machine, so all the hardware seems to work.
I've tried alternating which hard drive is master and slave.
I've tried only using one hard drive at a time.
I've run DSL and ubuntu live CDs and they work off the CD, but not when I try to install them on the hard drive.

I'm really frustrated, I really want to learn linux but I can't get it to work on this computer.

any help is much appreciated
thanks

[objuan]

Well it sounds like your out of disk space all ready, if have installed every thing then 1.2 gig's is not enough.

[squish]

I've installed it on my 6.5GB maxtor though, with the 1.2GB drive used as my /home directory.

[objuan]

This is possible a kernel issue with the hardware.
see if there is any issues with your hardware here
http://www.linuxhardware.org/