HAVE JUST BUILT A NEW SYSTEM
COMPRISING OF SEE BELOW
ASROCK K7S8XE (SIS 748 CHIPSET)
AMD XP 2000= CPU
2x 256 DDR400 SAMSUNG MEMORY
ATI RADEON 9200SE AGPX8 G/CARD
MAXTOR DIAMONDMAX 9 120G H/DRIVE
LG X16 DVD ROM DRIVE
NEC2500 X8 DVD+/DVD- RW DRIVE
550W PSU
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WINDOWS XP PRO..................

THE PROBLEM I HAVE IS THE EVERY TIME I TRY TO INSTALL MANDRAKE
THE INSTALLER STARTS OK BUT GET'S STUCK ON WHAT SEEMS TO BE
THE HARDDRIVE IO SET UP AND KEEP'S COMING BACK WITH THE SAME ERROR HARDDRIVE INTERUPT FAILED, IT THEN WONT GO ANY FUTHER.
I DESPARATELY WANT TO TRY LINUX AS THIS IS ON OF THE MAIN REASONS
FOR BULIDING THS NEW SYSTEM. FROM WHAT PEOPLE I HAVE ASKED ALREADY HAVE SAID THAT THE PROBLEM LIE'S WITH THE SIS 748 CHIPSET.....
IF THIS IS THE PROBLEM OK I WILL GO GET A NEW MOTHERBOARD
BUT WHAT 1

have you tried loading with noapic and nolapic options?

When loading up Mandrake you should be able to hit F2 or something similar which will show you a text menu with a list of options... i.e. expert or whatever. Use that so you can load it with the parameters the last person posted. It may mean you'll need to do something like:

install params

hit F1
install with
linux noapic nolapic
you may also need to specify your amount of memory which is given in example on the same page

I have the K7S8X board and have tried to install Fedora Core 2, Mandrake 10 & Debian and get the same problem when it gets too my 2 hard drives.
I have posted about this on other forums without any success

have you tried the above mentioned kernel parameters?

Many thanks Riley it is now installed and I am replying using Mandy 10.
By the way what does noapic & nolapic stand for?.

they are for power management. I know I and many other people have to disable them so I don't know why they aren't disabled by default. It's just no APIC and no Local APIC