Disk access problem with 5.3 install from CD

[John.Dutcher at excellus.com]

I have noted success stories from some who have installed FreeBSD on Compaq
Laptops similar to mine:  Compaq Armada 7400, 6.2 gig drive, 128 mb RAM.

I purchased the 5.3 (2) CD, (1) DVD set and have tried multiple times to
use CD 1
to install. All attempts fail after providing these message:

      1) Early in the process:  "ad0:  Failure  Read_DMA timed out"
              (this msg is repeated 3-4 times)

      I select a standard install, giving the entire drive to FreeBSD
      No MBR needed...don't want to accomodate other OS's

      2) Soon I get; "Writing partition information to drive ad0"

           followed by:  "Error Unable to write data to disk ad0"

               and then: "Couldn't make filesystem properly, aborting"

Responding to some other user sites, I tried doing a boot from my Win
backup rescue boot disk and ran FDISK to apply a single DOS partition as I
had read that this might help.....didn't seem to.  Results as before.

Any ideas available as to what I might try next ??