Sounds like your mother board is using the HD as the primary boot device. You need to change it to boot from CD. This happens in your bios. There should be message when you first boot turn on your computer telling you to hit some key for configuration options. That should bring up the bios and you ...

The Oxygen-8 has got to be one the most poorly built controllers on the market. I've heard more horror stories about the oxygen 8 not working correctly than any other controller.
I don't know why people buy M-audio crap. Their equipment is terrible, the Oxygen-8 being the worst offender.

I've been using Live since version 5, I skipped 6, and am on 7 now. I love it, I use it in the studio, as well as for live performances. I switched over from from Sonar.
I found the built in tutorials really beneficial, and recommend them for anyone who wants to learn Live.

Ableton has a triplet grid that you can access with CTRL+3.