It sounds like you have a bad V27 disk. Try redownloading it again and burn a fresh copy onto a quality CD-R at the lowest possible burning speed.
As for the MkIV, keep trying to reload the V26 disk, it should eventually take.
The GUI you are likely seeing is the one from the video module, which takes over when the vehicle can't "boot" from the nav drive.

and :xoutpost: