Debian installation hangs

["Mark Weston" <mark@msw1.demon.co.uk>]

Hi,

I've been trying my first ever Linux installation from a Debian 2.0 CD, and have 
run into problems which are beyond me at the moment.  I'd be really grateful for 
some help.

The installation (CD or rescue floppy) loads the Linux kernel, and during the 
long series of hardware detection messages, successfully detects all the IDE 
devices and then hangs on the line.

md driver 0.35 MAX_MD_DEV=4 MAX_REAL=8

I've tried many times over with both media, and it always hangs in the same 
place.

After this, I tried a RedHat 5.2 CD which installed successfully first time; on 
this one, the equivalent line was

md driver 0.36.3....etc

So now I have a working RedHat install, but I'd actually set my heart on Debian. 
 What hardware is this "md driver" supposed to be driving, and how possible is 
it to get a Debian boot/rescue disk with the later working (on my PC) version of 
it?  BTW, at three days into being a Linux user, I don't yet feel up to the 
compile-your-own option.

Here are the gory hardware details in case they help

Dell PC with pentium 133 CPU
PCI motherboad, Triton chipset
32MB RAM
4 (E)IDE devices
  Maxtor 7.5 Gb disk
  WD 1.6 Gb disk
  SyQuest IDE SyJet
  Teac IDE CD-ROM
S3 Trio video card
Soundblaster AWE32

Thanks in advance

Mark Weston