I have pretty much the same set up as the original poster but not the Promise card. Same thing happens to me - starts up fine on first screen. The next screen starts with the penguin in the top corner and then nothing else. Penguin stays there and nothing happens.

The CD doesn't spin at all. Tried both CDs (one actually DVD, one a CD-RW). Tried numerous combinations of various cheat codes (all no-, failsafe, atapicd, etc, etc).

CD is fine as I successfully used it on another box.

(Maybe not odd to others, but is to me) is that the CD doesn't spin. I've had problems installing Knoppix before due to CD issues (need to use atapcid) but noticed the CD issue always showed up the third or fourth line down - after the CD was already spinning away. I don't understand why the CD won't even start the spin after the first screen.

Any ideas??