X window woes on HP pavilion ze4600

[Peter.Robinson@t-online.de (peter robinson)]

Hi,

Thanks to those who answered some questions of mine some days ago. I have now 
tried several variations upon several themes in order to get debian (v. 3.0) 
on my laptop (HP pavilion ze4600), and had gotten a stable command line 
version running. I thereupon started X via startx which caused for some 
reason first a KDE setup dialog to appear (everything freezes) and after a 
reboot a gnome login dialog (again, everything freezes).
I presume that the configuration of X is completely wrong so that I have no 
ability to use keyboard or touch pad. 
Is there a boot setting for the debian rescue boot (using a 3.0 DVD) that will 
prevent X from starting so that I will be able to change the settings of X? 
Any other ideas?

Thanks
Peter