I'm sorry to say, greygooseplz, you may be right, and you may be wrong...
DMA is not uncommon on any device, CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-RW, or a hard drive. In the case of a DVD, not having DMA active can make a movie "choppy", and in my case, having DMA active on my "flackey" hard drive, can make it not work. ( Samsung model )
I would suggest the cheatcode that UnderScore suggested, try that, if you get in, then try using the
hdparm command to isolate, maybe, which one, or a combination of, device(s) could be causing a problem. Thats a start. You might try the "full guns" approach. When you get the
boot: prompt, take a look at the list of cheatcodes you can use. Especially the ones that have
no... in front of them, and try those...
i.e. If you dont have PCMCIA, use the nopcmcia cheatcode, if you dont have something, then use the "no" cheatcode for it...
Booting into v3.3, I had a long slew of cheatcodes to get in...
boot: linux26 lang=us alsa nopcmcia noapm noagp noswap nodma noacpi
This was actually for v3.4, and booting the experimental kernel 2.6, but change the "linux26" to "knoppix" and it should work with any version.
About the ONLY thing that is being "set" in the above command is, the language, and ALSA support, almost everything else, is being disabled... The above command was used to boot my new version of 3.4, off the CD, with an old hard drive installed version of 3.3, which was going to be erased, and the new version replace it - hence, nothing was trying to go to an install, or hard drive.
Again, most "everyone" needs to use some sort of cheatcode, or a combination of cheatcodes, to get the OS up and running. I have only heard a few people report that they didnt have to do anything, and it worked. This is not an issue with the OS, remind you, it is probably due to the "complexity" of individuals computers, hardware, and what they require. This is why Knoppix has those cheatcodes, in the first place, to "hopefully" iron out those differances
Good Luck.