ok, after trying to install mandrake (and succeeding), restarting many times, each time it locking up on the PCMCIA start, I tried to see if knoppix would do this, it did, but on SCSI. I then was able to type in before it booted "knoppix noscsi" and it booted perfectly, pcmcia works flamlessly. Now I wonder if it's the same problem that mandrake is having. Is there any way to shut off the scsi from booting? going into "expert" on boot results in it locking up for some unknown reason.

Welcome!
That's at install, but you said you installed already rt? Either way the kernel accepts parameters the same. If your using lilo and choose linux to boot, then at the lilo screen hit Esc and type
linux <parameter>

Your noscsi is interesting because I don't see that in the list of available options but I'm sure there's others that are not included as well.
http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=3099