Try failsafe ...

If you can get in that way, try a combination of the "no..." cheatcodes... Like noscsi noagp noapm nodma nopcmcia noacpi

Just as an example, my usuall boot prompt line, for the kernel 2.6.6, from within Knoppix 3.4, was the following:

boot: linux26 lang=us nopcmcia noagp noacpi nodma noapm

You would probably want pcmcia support if you are on a laptop, and if you just want the "normal" kernel, you would replace the "linux26" with "knoppix", in the above cheatcode line...

Hope this helps,
Ms. Cuddles