Works fine for me too, with my Althon64 3000. My hard disk is SATA, and isn't detected unless I use the 2.6 kernel, but it doesn't crash if I use 2.4... It just doesn't show up.

I found that after doing an hdd install, I couldn't boot Knoppix unless I took my Belkin USB bluetooth adapter out. Maybe if you unplug anything you don't need you might find it starts working? :/ It's not a very educated answer but it might work :P