[newbie] SOS mdk v9.2(Download ED.) freezes on boot

[Sotocan]

Hello mates,   First of all you need to know my hardware:             Mobo: MSI 865PE Neo2 FIS2R – BIOS v1.4 - build date 18/08/03,             CPU: Intel P4 2,8 FSB800 HT (HT is enabled in the BIOS),             2x256 DDR 400 RAM,             VGA: MSI FX5900-VTD128 – BIOS v4.35.20.18.04,             Hdds: (BIOS setting: native mode; that is 4 IDE channels)                         Hitachi SATA Deskstar 7K250 - 80GB,                         IBM “DeathStar” DTLA 307030 (operating in PIO mode only!)             Cd-roms: Plextor CDRW and a Pioneer DVD-rom   I have a dual-boot system (the other OS is winXP, which boots normally). My problems with mdk 9.2 started very early. During the installation process and right after the mouse configuration and testing screens, my computer freezes. I reset it a couple of times but no progress could be made. Finally, I decided to unplug the “DeathStar”. Voila, the installation process proceeded normally. Now the boot problem…. If I choose the “linux-smp” kernel the system freezes right after the …. Finding modules dependences    [OK] >cursor blinks for a second or two here and then freezes.   If I plug the IBM’s hdd, the “linux-smp” kernel always freezes when it tries to activate the DMA on that disk…   Now my other option is to boot with the standard (non-smp) kernel. This kernel always passes the step of trying to activate the DMA on the IBM’s hdd (without actually succeeding – this is not an issue since even winXP fails, so it’s the hdd that is problematic…). This kernel also manages 3 out of 4 times to start the X-server, but exactly then it freezes the system as well (Grrr!!!)   The “failsafe” kernel always boots normally, unless I press ‘Y’ in the HDDs integrity check question…(that is when I haven’t shutdown the system properly). Fsck ALWAYS freezes the system after 35% - 70% completion (Once it managed to check one partition completely, but right after that my computer reboot-itself !!!)   I couldn’t find much in the error logs, but one thing might be useful to you: In /var/log/kernel/errors file, whenever I don’t boot with the “failsafe” kernel the following errors appear: Note: “ide” is the Hitachi SATA device. errors:             …Kernel: ide: late registration of driver             …Kernel: Swsusp 1.0.3: Missing or invalid swap partition location (resume= parameter). Disabled.   Swap partition should be valid since I re-installed the OS, reformatting all the partitions in the process… A final note, all the partitions (except swap J) in the ide drive use the ext3-fs.   Do you think updating to kernel-smp-2.4.22.18mdk-1-1mdk.i586.rpm,will solve my problems ??? Thanks in advance…