Where did you download the ROM from? That sounds like an issue with the download. Did you compare the checksum to the download page? Your MD5 will tell you the integrity of the data and if it's been compromised during the download.
Also, as another user said, switch to TWRP. Only issue would be that old backups with CWM would be unusable.
Odin is a very useful program for flashing both ROMs and also recovery files like TWRP.
I do recommend heading over to XDA as they've got massive threads on this and probably multiple links to different ROMs/versions.
Also, you can't flash from your internal storage as you are supposed to be fully wiping it clean. That's where an SD card would fit in. You'd wipe the cache and data for the phone itself, including internal storage. From what I remember, it won't wipe your SD card unless you go into a separate option to wipe it.
Good luck!