Im a noob... but I want to install Ubuntu...

On a laptop that has a broken hardrive. Yes im not brilliant with computers, but i am patient, and I (in my eyes) persevere and eventually get things working even if it takes a very long time to do... after all everyone has to start somewhere. My uncle who is very hard to get hold of said you could run it from a CD as an iso image, but how do I do that. Basically I have an old laptop that suddenly stopped working, and I dont understand why, only that it can no longer find ANYTHING to boot from (harddrive 'isnt present' or something like that. Now I would like to get it up and running even if it means running Ubuntu from a CD, as I dont really have the cash to fork out for a new hard drive. My 2 questions are:
1. Can you run it from a USB stick?
2. How do I run it from a CD if you cant from a USB?

http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/

Well ive run out of time today, but ill be nice to a lot of people tomorrow, thankyou, and for the fast response

Cant find the answers... Sorry to be a pain

Those people ARE EXPERTS! Ask them.


:)