You might have face several issues while installing SQL Server on the standalone server and on cluster, some of the errors are mentioned below; I hope this could help you in resolving some issues.

>>Error message when you install SQL Server 2005: “There was an unexpected failure during the setup wizard”

Most common error when you copy the setup files from the CD or from the network location to install your SQL Server and you encountered the below mentioned error as shown in RED

When you encounter this error first of all check for logs in location C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\LOG\Files and check for SQLSetupNumber_ServerName_Core(local).log and check for below mentioned error.

 Running: InstallToolsAction.10 at: 2006/4/8 16:46:2

Error: Action “InstallToolsAction.10” threw an exception during execution. Error information reported during run:Target collection includes the local machine.

Fatal Exception caught while installing package: “10”
Error Code: 0x80070002 (2)

Windows Error Text: The system cannot find the file specified. Source File Name: sqlchaining\sqlprereqpackagemutator.cpp

Compiler Timestamp: Tue Aug 9 01:14:20 2005

Function Name: sqls:: SqlPreReqPackageMutator::modifyRequest
Source Line Number: 196
—- Context ———————————————–
sqls::InstallPackageAction::perform
WinException caught while installing package. : 1603

Error Code: 0x80070643 (1603)

Windows Error Text: Fatal error during installation. Source File Name: packageengine\ installpackageaction.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Fri Jul 1 01:28:25 2005
Function Name: sqls::InstallPackageAction::perform

This problem occurs because the folders that contain the files that are required during the installation of SQL Server 2005 do not have a correct layout.
To work around this problem, set the folders in the correct layout for the SQL Server 2005 installation.
The SQL Server 2005 installation uses the following two folders:
•           Servers
•           Tools
These two folders must be under the same level of a folder or the root folder of a drive. The names of these folders must be exactly Servers and Tools. The Servers folder contains all the files that are required to install major SQL Server 2005 components, such as database engine. The Tools folder contains tools components and Books Online for SQL Server 2005.
In this example, the D:\SQLServer2005 folder is the location to which you want to copy the files from the SQL Server 2005 installation CDs.
In the D:\SQLServer2005 folder, create the following two subfolders:
Servers & Tools

1. Copy all the files from the SQL Server 2005 installation CD that is named Servers to the D:\SQLServer2005\Servers folder.
2. Copy all the files from the SQL Server 2005 installation CD that is named Tools to the D:\SQLServer2005\Tools folder.
3. Open the D:\SQLServer2005\Servers folder, and then double-click Setup.exe to start the SQL Server 2005 Setup program.

>>SQL Server took too much time than expected, sometime more than 24 hours

You could face a this issue when the primary domain has many external trust relationships with other domains, or when many lookups are performed at the same time, the time that is required to look up domain group names may increase significantly. Therefore, the time that is required to install SQL Server 2005 may also increase. To resolve this issue MS has suggested a hotfix below is the link to resolve this issue.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910070
I have also face similar kind of issue with SQL server 2008 Edition, however for me Slipstream setup worked. To know more about slipstream setup, you have to check my blog “How to slipstream SQL Server 2008 setup”

 >> On a computer that has a multicore processor, you may be unable to install SQL Server 2005

 When you are installing SQL server 2005 on a server and every time the installation get failed in the last when setup trying to start your SQL Services, when you analyze the error log in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\LOG you find the below mentioned error
Unable to start service (1053)
Error Code: 0x8007041d (1053)
Windows Error Text: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
This situation can be True in case of below mentioned conditions.
1.     The ratio between logical processors and physical sockets is not a power of 2. For example, the computer has a single socket together with a triple-core processor.
2.     The number of physical cores is not a power of 2.
3.     The total number of CPUs is an odd number. For example, there are seven or nine CPUs.

There were 2 workaround to resolve this issue one is to change the NUMPROC value to 1 in boot.ini advanced configuration, and the other method is to extract the SP and run the setup using command line along with this Hotfix, for more details follow the below mentioned link suggested by MS.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954835

>>After you install SQL Server 2005, the full-text search service cannot start

This issue occurs when you install SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008 and the full text service fails to start, this problem occurs because the NTLM Security Support Provider (NTLMSSP) service does not exist on Windows Server 2008. However, the full-text search service depends on the NTLMSSP service. However the workaround is very simple to resolve this issue you have to install SQL Server 2005 SP2.
>> All resources did not come online and therefore you will need to manually set the cluster restart option
This issue occurs when you install SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008 failover cluster and you receive this error message “All resources did not come online and therefore you will need to manually set the cluster restart option”.
This error occurred because full text service fails to start, this problem occurs because the NTLM Security Support Provider (NTLMSSP) service does not exist on Windows Server 2008. However, the full-text search service depends on the NTLMSSP service. However the workaround is very simple to resolve this issue you have to install SQL Server 2005 SP2.

 

>> The setup has encountered an unexpected error while Completing Commit. The error is: The cluster resource cannot be made dependent on the specified resource because it is already dependent.
Consider a scenario in which you have an existing SQL Server 2005 clustered instance installed on Windows server 2008, and you try to perform any of the following operations by using setup.exe:
1.     Edition upgrade
2.     Change server collation
3.     Rebuild system databases

You will get the below mentioned error in case any of the above operation performed “The setup has encountered an unexpected error while Completing Commit. The error is: The cluster resource cannot be made dependent on the specified resource because it is already dependent”
This error occurred because there is a known compatibility issue with SQL 2005 Setup and Windows Server 2008 Failover cluster. Setup tries to add the network name or the shared disk as a dependency to the SQL Server resource, and this fails because the dependency already exists.
There is no workaround available for this issue. At the time of the most recent update to this article, SQL Server 2005 is in extended support phase, and this issue will not be fixed in this release. If you have to perform any of the actions mentioned above, you will have to uninstall the existing instance of SQL Server and reinstall it with the new edition/collation changes.