I did a Redhat9 install recently and there was an option "linux mediacheck" (something like that) from the menu that checks the disc to see if it is a good image. How about making an md5sum of the cloop image and putting it in the initrd image and having an option to verify the image is good before chrooting it? Certainly might help some of the newbie issues.

I realize you can do this after the download but that is assuming the user knows what md5sum is and has the software downloaded. If it was in the initrd image, you could check it during the boot.