I am running a Compaq Presario 915US, with the following specs:
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53GHz)
512MB DDR RAM (2100) 64MB allocated to video
40GB HD
DVD/CD-RW
10/100 LAN
56k v.92 modem
Windows XP Home

and I cannot install Mandrake 9.0 for the x86 architecture.

I put in the first CD (downloaded via linuxisos.org) and booted the machine. Booted from CD fine, but after checking some hardware (almost one screen of checks, still showing Mandrake image in corner) I get the following two lines, at which point it stalls:

Partition check:
hda:spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7

What do I need to do to get this to work?

PS- I have run from the command line at the start (after trying a normal boot, no command line options):

Linux
Linux noauto nomce
Linux nomce
Linux noauto

and they all get the same message. Is this a version incompatibility, or what? How can I get past this?

Thanks!