Getting 500 Internal Error trying to install

I have installed ZC (ie uploaded file structure as is to html_public/ changed the configure.php files changed all required permissions so ready to roll the install, but when I try my equivalent to http://www.mydomain.com/catalog or http://www.mydomain.com/catalog/zc_install either in IE7 or Firefox I get no further than the following page:
500 Internal Server Error
The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request.
The script had an error or it did not produce any output. If there was an error, you should be able to see it in the error log.

My host states the Platform Type is Debian which I think is Linix based, MySQL Version 5.0.45, PHP vesion is 4.4.7 but I have an option to switch between PHP version 4 (default) or version 5???

Best advice please.

SOLVED Egg on face :wacko:

My platform was telling me that my CGI scripting was active and actually it wasn't I had to enable it to get to the PHP Server. Oops all is fine now. But maybe this will help another like me LOL:smile:

Posting an icon to say solved.

Well thought all was fine but now have other install issues. See other thread PHP4 or PHP5

Did you look at the server's errorlog to see what caused the error? Sometimes only your host can do that, depending on their server configuration.

500 errors are often the result of the server's configuration rejecting the security settings in .htaccess files. Try renaming the supplied .htaccess files to htaccess_OFF temporarily as a test.

It can also be a result of file permissions conflicts between what you've set vs what your server's administrator has set as allowable. Ask them what maximum allowed permissions settings are.

500 errors are basically a catch-all, and thus referring to the server errorlog is key to finding out more of what's wrong.