Red screen when loading Ubuntu normally? + other noob Q's

[Trifid]

Its a rainy day and I have wanted to try Linux for a while and I finally cracked after someone mentioned Ubuntu and noob friendly in the same sentance.

Anyway, I downloaded it and burnt the image to a cd and put it in on restart to try. I selected the first option to boot from CD or install and after it does all the checks it goes to a red / brown screen and stays there. I then tried checking for errors on the disk and came back good, but it still does it. I then tried on safe mode version and I am now in Ubuntu . Is there something I need to do to get it working normally?

Also, I had a look on the add/remove applications but I can't find SATA drivers. Is there something I need to do to be able to access my hard drives?

This is the error I get:

error: device /dev/sda1 is not removable

error: could not execute pmount

How do I set the resolution to a decent one and the refresh rate? - before I get a headache. I have found it under system but it is not applying.

Thanks for the help.

More stuff: - How do I get middle click scroll to work? And the back button on my mouse?

 

[Trifid]

I've found out it is because my drives are formatted in NTFS. Since having a look on forums I'm not sure if I want Linux.

For instance:

run the following command in your favourite terminal:

I'm not sure what my favorite panel is.