HD Install :: Problem with Toshiba Satellite S1800

I have two old laptops - a Toshiba Satellite S1800 (1.1 GHz PIII 256 MB RAM) and a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook E6530 (500 MHz PIII 128 MB RAM). The Lifebook has a dodgy IDE bus, in that it can't automatically detect the DVD drive - I had to set the secondary bus to CD/DVD in the BIOS for it to work. This means that it can't boot from CD/DVD.

The Satellite works fine in this case. It boots from the CD OK. When running DSL from the live CD, it will not detect the harddrive. I don't know why, I am currently running a Linux distribution called Debris which installed from a live CD just fine.

I plugged a spare laptop harddrive into an old desktop (with adapter) and installed DSL to that.
When the harddrive is in the Lifebook, it boots and runs OK - it needs some reconfiguring of the x-server, but nothing major.

When the harddrive is in the Satellite, it won't boot properly. The process gets as far as the extracting the kernel, then goes into kernel panic.

Any ideas?

original here.