Your older version of Ubuntu should still work.  Some things to consider; did you check the md5sum of your image file before you burned it to disk?  Are you sure you are using the correct version for your computer?  I mean, you can't expect the PowerPC version to boot on an Intel machine, and the 64-bit version won't work on a 32-bit processor.  Do you get any kind of menu screen at all?  There is a check disc function in the menu which you might want to run if you do get to the initial menu screen.  Also, some burner programs insist on burning disks as full speed.  This oftentimes leads to bad burns.  Try burning at a slower speed if possible (I always burn at 4X and have never had an unbootable disk).  Of course, if you have the wrong image file, it will still not work.  What kind of computer are you using?  Are you sure your CDROM drive can read properly?

HI, I had the same problem. the cure was that it will not boot if the drive is a DVD/CD drive.I had to put a CD drive configured as a Master and the DVD drive as a slave and put the CD in the CD drive and boot it from there.I made several live disks from the .iso file, actually I tried 3 different sources of files and 2 different Burners and it made no difference. The install would stop and display a message regarding "initramfs" and just hang there, I wonder if you get the same message? How many coasters have you made??Hope this helps,Regards Don...