Well For anyone who has the problem of the 0xAA or 0x0C message from smart boot manager there is likely a problem with the BRAND of disk you are using. The memorex cd-r's had lots of issues booting. I have some other cd-r's that I have no clue what brand they are (Completely blank on both sides) that worked to boot knoppix up. 16x was the slowest my burner would burn too so I hope this helps others. I realized what it was after i noticed I had used an older cd-r to burn the xp professional (w/ sp2) and it worked but the newer one didn't. I only had this problem on the Smartstep 250 laptop from dell.

Thank you all so much for your efforts in resolving this issue!