LinuxQuestions.org - Help installing Redhat Linux on Sony VAIO notebook

I'm new to Linux and am having some problems installing it onto my notebook. Sony VAIO PCG FX-300 CTO. It should be noted that all the 300 series notebooks have similar components so if you own a FX-300 series notebook and got Redhat or any Linux running properly please let me know how. Any help would be appreciated.

1] I cannot seem to get the monitor settings correct. When I boot Linux I cannot get to the GUI. I have no clue what model my LCD is or what the vertical and horizontal refresh rates are. Sony was absolutely no help in answering either of those questions. During the installation process my monitor was "unprobed," whatever that means. The default settings did not work correctly, as it chose 16MB as the video RAM size when it only has 4MB. My friend told me to run Xconfigurator and I've fiddled around with almost every possible logical configuration but I always get a configuration error. The monitor settings all seem to be for VGA or SVGA. My LCD is XGA. How do I work around that? Does anyone know of a way to correct this?

2] My mouse was not picked up during the Linux installation. It's currently connected on a USB port, a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0. It made installation more tedious than necessary but I managed to get through. But afterwards, when ran Linux and restarted, one of the lines failed, the shutdown of the mouse console or something like that. Is it because I can never get to the GUI and so therefore the mouse console is never loaded? Is this a major problem?

3] I currently have Windows XP installed on a separate partition on the same harddrive and it seems to be having an adverse reaction to Linux. Everytime I boot Windows it starts up scandisk, saying that the last boot was unsuccessful, which in actuality was. Once it logged a major error and lost it's reference to opening http files. I don't know what's going on. Any help?