Can't upgrade to Snow Leopard from 10.5.8

Hello, I know this a bit outdated...

I have a black Macbook Core 2 Duo 2.2. Ghz 13" S (Santa Rosa). I love it, I've had it for years and it's always done me well. About a year ago the DVD drive started giving me trouble (not sure if this is common, but I've heard others say the same) but I wasn't too concerned as I rarely use it.

A friend's now loaned me the Snow Leopard Install DVD to upgrade my OS as a lot of applications are no longer compatible, but my computer seems unwilling to take it!

Out of the variety of problems I've encountered it has:

1. Been "unable to read the disc" and asked if want to cancel or eject

2. Been "unable to install from this volume"

3. Gets stuck at "49 minutes remaining" and when I reboot it simply spits the disc out

4. It will not boot from the disc either, it simply just spits if out even if I hold Option while booting.

I'm currently in the process of making a .dmg on my work computer so I can try to boot from a partitioned HD, but does anyone have any similar experience with this? Should I simply learn to love 10.5.8??

Any help or similar experiences appreciated!