how are you booting the drive? any boot flags? I would boot using "-f -x -v" to try to lighten the need for everything to be supported (ie. network, full graphics, etc.) and to allow you to see where it is hanging.

-f : forced Extensions folder load
-x : safe mode
-v : verbose mode

Lawless made a great distro and it supports a ton of systems. Have you tried it via SATA connections? have you gone into the BIOS to edit any configurations? sometimes those can be tricky.

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