Thanks for the information Bas, but I am not sure it is the same problem
I am experiencing. I removed the aha-2940 uw scsi controller card and
disconnected the scsi hdd and the installation of sarge
(debian-installer tc1 with a 2.4 kernel) worked fine.
I guess it's indeed an intirely different problem then.
Could it be the same problems I reported (251750 and 247921) in which
both IDE and SCSI systems were in use but the SCSI modules were not loaded
before the e2fsck check, so not all disks were visible and the system hung?
(I had an additional problem because a firewire card reported overcurrent on
two buses and hung the system because its driver was not loaded early
enough, also reported in 251750)