Can I install Snow Leopard on a Mac Mini 1.5 Solo?

I bought a used Mac Mini. It is a 2006 I believe. It is a 1.5 Solo Core Intel. 2GB RAM. 60GB HDD.
I bought this for my kids, and wanted to wipe the drive and do a fresh install to ensure there would be no unexpected material to arise from a previous owner. I was given a Snow Leopard MAC OS X V10.6.3 Retail disk with the Mini. By starting from the install disk, I was able to wipe the drive. I did a simple zero data erase. Went smooth. I then started the install of SL. Chose language. Agreed to terms. Chose drive to install on. Told me it had 42 minutes to install. It then went to an error screen telling me the installation failed. Restart and try again. I have been through multiple attenpts at this.
I then decide to try my Leopard MAC OS X v10.5.4 Family Pack install disk that I have. I go through the same process to get an error telling me it could not install "essentials" and that I need to contact the manufacturer of the software.
Just out of morbid curiousity, I decided to put my SL disk in and give it one more try. Now when I get to the selct a disk to install on, it tells me there is a recoverable OS from a previous install that can be restored. Click customize to change install or click continue to recover the previous install. I got to 35 minutes and received the error screen. I have been thoughtful enough to include a picture of the error message I received.
It seems I have hit a wall. I am a mac guy. iPhone 4 / iPhone 5 / Mac G4 PPC Dual 1Ghz 2GB RAM / MacBook Pro 13" 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM / now this Mac Mini 1.5Ghz Solo Core 2GB RAM and a few others I have sold off over the years. I love them. Always have. But I cannot lie. I am ready to throw this Mini through a wall.
Am I missing something here?

There is no reliable way to test RAM short of a dedicated tester. There are software RAM testers that you can try - TechToolPro can do RAM tests:
http://www.micromat.com/techtoolpro
or you can try Rember/memtest:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/15837/rember
but they can often find only the most obvious problems, and if there is such a problem it usually prevents the RAM test from running at all. It's worth trying, though, as it may turn up useful information.
As to the logic board, TechToolPro can do some testing there as well, and authorized Apple service centers have additional tools. There is no single "tell tale sign" of a logic board problem since, given the many different functions the logic board performs, there can be many different symptoms.
If things work properly with an external drive but not with an internal drive, I'd guess a problem with the SATA controller chain on the logic board, but that's just a guess. But if that is the case, then a logic board replacement will be necessary, and as you say that's probably not worth it for a Core Solo mini.
Regards.

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I was running leopard with the combo update (10.5.8) but decided to install snow leopard as some of my apps need 10.6.8 to run.
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As I was trying different things to make a partition on my HD, I made notes as to what I did, and I finally got it to work. I will try to explain what I did.
Before installing “Lion,” I backed up Snow Leopard using Time Machine to my external Seagate HD. I installed “Lion,” and found out that I could not use some of my old apps, so I did the following.
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