Multiple Live CDs freezing while booting
 

I have tried to boot several different live cds, they all freeze at about the same time... in the graphical boot screen, about 20 percent. Knoppix-STD, Ubuntu 5.10, Mandriva 2006
all do it.

I have no clue... I have installed linux before- but with many problems on this machine- (I have mandriva 2005 on right now)

Do you guys have any ideas? I've searched the forums already.

My hardware:

2-80 GB seagate SATA hard drives (I found out I had to unraid these because of previous problems with the raid controller for linux during my last go-round installing)

geforce fx 5600 graphics card
1 GB kingston pc 2700 ddr ram
soundblaster audigy mp3+ sound card
gigabyte 7N400-pro2 motherboard
athlon xp 3000 processor
aopen 16x dvd burner
generic dvd drive (tried to put cd in both)

My version of linux (mandriva le 2005) has started to mess up, so I want to put something else on it, but I'm afraid I may lose it forever considering all of the problems I have had.

For some reason, even though it's not a laptop, I have to run the noapic argument... (can't figure out how to do that on the mandriva live 2006 version, though). Bear in mind these live cds will be temporary, I will install the real versions if I can be assured they will probably work... however, I'd love to get knoppix-std to work... I am having some hiccups with the network in my apartment I'd like to troubleshoot.

one other relevant piece of information...

They are downloaded versions being burned under linux with k3b. They had to be copied to a different hard drive before being burned...

that's all I can think of.

Any ideas?

Thanks guys

You have enough ram to try the 'knoppix toram' command from the Knoppix boot prompt, and run it from ram to see if it works properly (google up a copy of knoppix cheatcodes for more boot parameters to pass to Knoppix).

Beyond that, I can only ask if you have checked all of your hardware against the Linux Hardware Compatiblity List (HCL). You can find it in the LinuxQuestions Wiki. Since you indicate you've had other problems with that machine, that would seem to be the next thing to investigate.