Installationproblem with XBMCUbuntu

Im trying to set up a HTPC with XBMC but I cant succeed in the installation. I am completely new to Linux and this is what I did:

I bought a Zotac ZBOX nano AD12 with 8Gb Corsair DDR memmory and a Samsung 830 series SSD 128Gb. I installed the hardware as instructed in the manual.
I just downloaded XBMCUbuntu 11.0 Eden and used Unetbootin to load the ISO to an USB stick.

I put the USB stick into my zotac BOX and power it on. It opens a boot menu that includes (among some other things) the option to run XBMCUbunto without installing or to install it.
When I click to run it without installing it starts to load, takes a few seconds but then it returns to some MS-DOS like terminal and I should control the system by typed commands but I dont get any nice desktop interface.
The same happens when I select the option to install XBMCUbuntu. The only XBMC I get is in white text written XBMC@Live in the lower left corner of my screen.

What is going wrong here?

- is it a hardware problem?
- should the harddisk be formatted first? If so, how to do it from this terminal?
- am I forgetting a step?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Niels