I just downloaded and burned Mandrake 9.1.

I tried doing a fresh install on my desktop computer and it seemed to go all the way through the install just fine- HOWEVER, after getting to the login screen (logging in under my regular username/password OR even trying to login under ROOT) - the computer seems to load up (showing the KDE box or Gnome box) and just stops. The HD continues to grind away as if loading something, but never does. I have left the computer several hours and it still didn't load.

I thought perhaps it was some kind of hardware issue that I didn't catch...so I tried installing 9.1 on my laptop...

SAME THING HAPPENS!

My desktop computer:

PIII 800
GForce 2 MX400 Video card
Ensonique sound card
256MB

Laptop computer:

Dell
PII-400
256MB

Anyone have similar issues or have any ideas?

I've tried reducing packages, booting minimally, etc...no success.

LINUX NOOB alert.

I've installed Mandrake 9.1 several times on desktops and a laptop and I've never seen that. The fact that it happens on both machines seems to indicate it is a problem with the media. Did you try to do md5sum on the downloaded files to see if they match what is reported on the download mirror? If md5sum looks right, maybe you can try re-burning them at a slower speed. I've had fewer problems with data disks when I burn at a speed lower than the maximum reported for the media.

When I first installed Mandrake on my P3 866 mhx with 256 mb of ram, it did the same thing when I logged in as root.

I had a dual booter.