A quick update:

I have tried a huge variety of configurations using both linux24 and linux 26 with the noscsi, nodma, noapic and acpi=off with little success.

I can boot successfully with "linux24 noscsi nodma"

However I am trying to boot with linux26 so I can do an HD install. I've tried linux26 with most of the options I list above with no success. The boot config of "linux26 noscsi nodma" will hang on the line:

Accessing KNOPPIX CDROM on /dev/scd0..

Please help! Thank you!

I can always try to do an install with the debian-installer but I prefer Knoppix!