So basically you have a laptop, with a HDD in it, and no operating system on the HDD... okay.
The easiest thing for you to do would be to locate a LiveCD of some sort. I assume you already have one, and if you don't, I'm going to assume you can find a computer to download and burn a LiveCD since you found a computer to type this post on.
Go to Ubuntu's site and download the latest version, 8.10 Intrepid. Then, boot to that LiveCD. If you have trouble doing this, you should check your BIOS boot order to make sure the CD is selected to boot before the Hard Disk Drive.
Within the installer you can format your hard drive accordingly. So say you want Ubuntu to be your entire drive... format everything to ext3 accordingly (along with swap and whatever else you want to throw in there) and install. It'll partition it on the fly.
Being without an operating system on a hard drive does not mean you are out of luck. It simply means you have another hurdle to jump over. In this case, you need to find a means to put an operating system on that hard drive to work off of... in which case, the Ubuntu LiveCD will take care of that for you. Just make sure the LiveCD is burned as a bootable image. Otherwise, it won't be detected.
Post back if you need anymore help or can shed anymore info on the problem.
