New SATA Install freezes in USB 2.0 driver load
 

I'm trying to install Slackware 9.1 on a new system that i'm building for my friend. we have an ABit KV7 mobo with SATA. WinXP boot is not seeing the SATA no matter what i do, so i've convinced him to go with linux. This is my first attempt with Linux outside of Knoppix. on the first attempt i went with the standard option and it freezes up on:

usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
PCI: found IRQ 12 for device 00:10.4
PCI: sharing IRQ 12 with 00:11.5
ehci_hcd 00:10.4: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0

the screen has stayed at that line for over half an hour, during which i've been searching these forums. the second time i tried, i told it to use the kernel scsi.s, but it froze up at the same point. i'm at a loss.

Specs:

ABIT KV7 with VIA KT600 FSB and VT8237 RSB
256MB PC3200 DDR Ram
AMD Athlon 2500+ 333MHz
Maxtor 160GB SATA
Pioneer AO6 DVD +-R/+-RW

Thanks in advance.