7.04 live CD errors on IBM Thinkpad T40

I'm trying to install 7.04 on a laptop that's currently running a previous version of Ubuntu. However the installer has been crashing at different places, locking up the machine so that I can't examine the log files.

During this boot from the live CD I have already had some problems, before running the installer. A warning dialogue said that the Gnome configuration daemon failed to start up, and likewise for a clock applet.

The syslog seems to show errors reading from the CD. The CD self-test, run on this machine, didn't find any problems. This is the second CD I've tried.

I'll see if I can find a way to attach the complete log file, then I'll try reinstalling the previous Ubuntu.

syslog fragment:

Jun 1 15:53:59 ubuntu kernel: [ 6.216000] squashfs: version 3.2-r2 (2007/01/
15) Phillip Lougher
Jun 1 15:53:59 ubuntu kernel: [ 111.000000] sr 1:0:0:0: SCSI error: return cod
e = 0x08000002
Jun 1 15:53:59 ubuntu kernel: [ 111.000000] sr0: Current: sense key: Medium Er
ror
Jun 1 15:53:59 ubuntu kernel: [ 111.000000] Additional sense: Unrecovered
read error
Jun 1 15:53:59 ubuntu kernel: [ 111.000000] Info fld=0x4eee0
Jun 1 15:53:59 ubuntu kernel: [ 111.000000] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, s
ector 1293184
Jun 1 15:53:59 ubuntu kernel: [ 111.000000] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, lo
gical block 323296