Linux installations always fail, need help!

[Gozaru]

I've been having problems installing Linux on machine so I gave up a while ago, but i'd really like to try it. I'm going to install Mandrake 7.1 on my machine now...but I had problems doing it earlier and would like to give you the stats on my machine to help me out .

P3 600
Abit BE6-II(using ata66 highpoint 366...didn't work last time I tried, didn't let me install)
SB Live
Nvidia TNT2 Ultra
3com 3C905B
Adaptec 2930CU (replaced my Initio 9100U that crashed the installation Mandrake 7.0)

Help on what I need to do? Thanks.

 

[Shanteli]

Just inquiring, but does it fail near the beginning of the installation when it states "Error" after it attempt to create some sort of ramdrive thing? And then it just sits there with a cursor while it is supposed to be "detecting CD-ROM"? Cuz I had this problem w/ Mandrake 7.1 also...and I'm still baffled

 

[Gozaru]

Used to stop responding when detecting SCSI cards.
Now it doesn't detect any hard drives...