mandrake wont boot on my hp laptop

[offtheedge]

i installed mandrake on my laptop, but it wont boot, during the installation process, it said the graphics werent configured, so i clicked the button to configure it. there was no option for a mobility radeon there, so i just chose "radeon." can anyone help me with this? o, and im doing a full installation, i took off windows totally, not a dual boot. TIY
these are the specs for my hp laptop

Mobile AMD® Athlon? XP-M Processor 2500+ (1.87GHz) with PowerNow!? Technology

Processor Cache
512KB (L2)
Memory
512MB DDR SDRAM (2 x 256MB) at 266MHz;
Video Graphics
ATI MOBILITY RADEON 4X AGP and 3D architecture
Video Memory
64MB DDR SDRAM (shared)
Hard Drive
40GB Enhanced IDE hard disk drive
Multimedia Drive
DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive (CD-read 24x; CD-write 8x; CD-rewrite 8x; DVD-read 8x)
Display
15" XGA TFT (1024 x 76
Fax/Modem
Integrated V.90/V.92 56K modem (RJ-11 connector)
Network Card
Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)

Wireless Connectivity

Integrated 54g wireless LAN
Sound
* 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio
* Altec Lansing Speakers
Keyboard
87-/88-key, full-size with embedded numeric keypad
PC Card Slots
1 Type II or III PC Card slot; CardBus-enabled

[jeremy1701]

What is the error you get when it "won't boot"

Jeremy

[offtheedge]

this is what happens:
i turn it on, hp screen pops up, then the screen with the OS choices pops up. The choices are linux, linux-nonfb, and failsafe. ive tried all 3 and the loading bar movies to the end, and then in "linux" the screen goes blank. The other 2 somewhat load, says "bios data check successfull", then some loading occurs and stops right there also i noticed that the HDD light isnt blinking. reading the lines i see that "checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (no cpio magic); looks like an initrd
ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initrd ... not found!"
at first i thought it might have been the video driver, but since the hdd light doesnt blink and the above code, i have no clue anymore. also this is the mandrake 10.1 community distro. TIA

[lakerdonald]

okay,
have you tried reinstalling?

[offtheedge]

yes i have

[lakerdonald]

did you download the ISOs from the net or did you buy a cd from a distributor?

[offtheedge]

downloaded it from mandrake's site

[lakerdonald]

you should check the md5sum of the ISOs to make sure that your download wasn't corrupted. you could also try reburning

[Airneil]

this is what happens:
ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initrd ... not found!"

That's your clue right there.

Boot in single user mode, disable ACPI. You may also need to disable PCMCIA and APM.

Check this site: http://www.linux-laptop.net

It has lots of info on what is needed to run linux succesfully on most laptops.