Can't Boot: Looking for cd at /dev/hda

When I try to boot off of the knoppix cd, it gets to the "Looking for cd at /dev/hda" step (the second step) and doesn't continue. The blinking cursor stops blinking after a little bit.

Is there any way for me to trouble shoot this step or bypass it?

Other issues to note:
I got a "disabling irq#18" message before, but it seemed to go away after I switched my harddrives from chip select to master/slave.
Also, the Ubuntu live cd doesn't boot when searching for components on its cd.

Thank you!!!