Cant install Linux (lost interrupt...)

[linuxfrustrated]

Please help - cant get through the initial install process. Trying to install Mandrake 10.0 (although tried redhat before with similar result) from CD burned from ISO images -> Machine waits endlessly with 'lost interrupt' & 'timed out' and so on.
I am trying to install to a blank freshly formatted 8.5G hard drive, Athlon2.5GHz PC with 128M ram (also cordless keyboard but sure this cant be related to kbeydev problem?):-
Below is brief dialogue from the Kernel messages & logs during install - hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: lost interrupt
“—“
“—“
hda: 16514664 sectors
hda: lost interrupt …
…<4> ide-cd:cmd 0x5a timed out
<4> hdc: lost interrupt
<4> hdc: ATAPI 52x CD-ROM CD-R/RW CD-MRW Cache UDMA(33)
<6> Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision:3.20
<4> had: lost interrupt
<6> ide-cd:cmd 0x25 timed out
<4> hdc: lost interrupt

Viewing the logs…
* have to insmod keybdev
* needs kbeydev
* file-not-found-in-archive keybdev.k (maybe you can try another boot floppy such as ‘hdcdrom_usb_img’)
* warning insmod failed (keybdev (null)) (2)
* AUTOMATIC: paramter cdrom for method means returning CDROM drive
* have to insmod ide-cd
* needs cdrom
* ide-cd
Thanks for reading - any suggestions welcome.
Linuxfrustrated

[dswain]

do you know if the hard disk is working? did you also set it up on the board properly? i suppose it is since its picking up on the disk drive.

Try booting without ACPI. What distro are you using so i can try and guide you in a better of a direction on how to do this.

[peetoose]

Use a different drive. That would seem to be the weak link
Or at least TEST the install with a different drive if you can't commit one right now. At least then you'd know for sure.

peetoose