why is it ubuntu can't install on a disk last used by debian?

[Jude DaShiell <jdashiel shellworld net>]

I'll find out more this weekend, but have a 120GB disk which had 
speakup-enabled debian installed on it I sacrificed for ubuntu.  ubuntu 
though when given the boot command line of linux 
ks=http://cwelug.org/~rwcitek/ubuntu/ks.cfg at the end of a day hasn't 
written anything to that hard drive that boots properly.  I have had grub 
errors with a larger drive of 18 and 22 respectively earlier but this is 
the same machine that debian disk was in and running perfectly well and 
talking yet grub just can't seem to get the job done with ubuntu 6.06 and 
I've used the accessible ubuntu release of that version.  I verified 
nothing had written to the hard drive by using fdisk in slackware 10.2 and 
checking for a partition table and the disk was innocent of a partition 
table.  I've checked that ks.cfg file ad nothing in it seems in the least 
way suspicious so for a little while I'm mystified.  Later this weekend, a 
good friend who is a linux system administrator is coming over and we will 
find out much more about all of this once that happens.  Whatever is 
learned I'll put up this weekend since I use drive sleds so can change out 
to a useable Linux disk quickly and update this list with what's found 
out.