Try pulling out both hard drives and booting from CD. If you continue to get the beeping thingy you'll know its probably something with the bios.Well, it's not doing it anymore! I booted from the Knoppix CD again to observe the behavior, and it didn't do it. And when I rebooted the next time from the new HDD, it didn't do it either! EVERYTHING worked just as expected, including the stop to allow me to make kernel choice etc.In the interim, I went into and out of the BIOS setup screen a couple of times, but I didn't change anything, and just hit ESC to continue bootup.So after ~5 boots using the HDD and a couple using Knoppix CD, it seems to have gotten a clue and it's fine now. Real scientific. I'm happy though, and I apologize for the bandwidth! Maybe this experience will be strangely encouraging to someone else though! Thanks Doug and all! - John