Here's exactly what I get after boot screen when I enter anything but 'failsafe':

2 Penguins (represents 2 processors - thanks to hyperthreading)

A bunch of initializing texts - sorry, I don't know what any of it means, but it's too much to type here.

Then I get the following:


Welcome to the KNOPPIX live Linux-on-CD (KNOPPIX is multi-colored)

Scanning for USB/Firewire devices...done (it scans for several other things, but it finishes with this)
Enabling DMA acceleration for: hda [TOSHIBA MK8026GAX] (That's my hard drive)
Enabling DMA acceleration for: hdc [SD-R2512] (That's my DVD-ROM drive)
Looking for CDROM in: /dev/scd0

Then the cursor blinks for a few seconds, the DVD-ROM drive works for a second, then the cursor disappears and it hangs indefinitely there.

Thanks.