Having tinkered with my new 2007.1 install to the point that a bunch of stuff wasn't working, I did a fresh install. Now it won't boot! It boots partway, then just freezes.

I even went so far as to do another complete fresh install, reformatting the partition (don't worry--I saved all my important stuff elsewhere) and starting with a clean slate. Still nothing.

I did a tail of /var/log/syslog and didn't see anything particularly revealing (to me):

May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: Freeing SMP alternatives: 16k freed
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: checking if image is initramfs... it is
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: Freeing initrd memory: 733k freed
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initramfs... error, file /DSDT.aml not found.
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: CPU0: AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor 3500+ stepping 02
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: Total of 1 processors activated (4426.91 BogoMIPS).
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: ENABLING IO-APIC IRQs
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: ..TIMER: vector=0x31 apic1=0 pin1=0 apic2=-1 pin2=-1
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: Brought up 1 CPUs
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: migration_cost=0
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: NET: Registered protocol family 16
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: ACPI: bus type pci registered
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: PCI: BIOS Bug: MCFG area at e0000000 is not E820-reserved
May 5 13:58:09 localhost kernel: PCI: Not using MMCONFIG.

I can boot in safe mode.

The other thing that baffles me is that when I watch the bootup process, it does not always freeze up at the same place. So I can't say that it freezes when it tries to bring up the network, or when it brings up this or that, because sometimes that's where it freezes and sometimes it isn't. :(

Update: The ACPI thingy didn't like my BIOS, or my BIOS didn't like it. Anyway, disabling it solved the problem. Nods to Dr. Google for helping me solve this.