FC2 install problems - 2 parts

[Mark]

What is odd is that the formatting seems to take unreasonably long.
It stalls at all 11 multiples - 11%, 33% , 44%, 55%, 66% and sits there for
a long time, then counts through up to the next 11-multiple - the 22 mark I
missed, so I don't know if it sat there too...

I have seen this behaviour on this machine when I first tried installing
FC2. I already had all these problems back then, so I switched over to FC1,
and all was fine - except for the missing network driver...