Hello,
I recently aquired an msi ex705x laptop. I took it out of the pack, placed the ubuntu install cd in (the i386 architecture, i hope it's the right one). the installer starts than freezes. I've tried several times, switched to fedora 9 that also freezes, and finally a windows xp that gives an error message without any concrete useful information.
I would greatly appreciate any help, thank you

We need more info - some error messages for example. Try downloading the Ubuntu "alternate" CD - it's a non-GUI, you may get to see something useful.

Ubuntu and Fedora simply freeze while copying installation files or something similar. I only get to hit the "install" button and after a short while the system freezes.
Someone told me today that it might be because the BIOS is rigged for Vista only, the BIOS version is v02.61, american megatrends inc.

This is the XP error message's techical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Also, the hard-disk is this toshiba MK2552GSX .

In fedora, when it reaches the booting kernel state just after i give it the boot command it says:

ACPI error:could not attach [don't know what] data followed by a stream of I/O errors.

Try "noacpi" as a (install) boot option - a search here on LQ will turn up plenty of background info.
Windows not booting is a bit of a worry; I'd be thinking of a return to the vendor.

I type acpi=off in the boot prompt, it skips the acpi error state, then i get this:

end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1414304
unable to find persistent overlay; using temporary red hat nash version 6.0.52 starting

setting up new root fs
no fstab.sys, mounting internal defaults
unmounting old /dev
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
welocome to fedora, press 'I' to enter interactive startup
starting udev:

and here it locks up. i've run memory, hard drive tests. they are ok. the optical device is also ok. I really don't get it.

Edit: I also tried Mandriva with noacpi and ide=nodma. didn't work. i'll take it back to the vendor on monday but it's still very strange.

Even later edit: Finally, I've managed to install Solaris. It uses GNOME desktop and i'm a bit familiar with that but i'm still way out of how to configure it and everything, so wish me luck.