install problems on older proliant

I have an older proliant 1500 all scsi system and I need to get the symbios scsi module loaded at boot time to do the install off the cd. Can anyone supply me with some information on how to do this. I have been trying to use the cd image to work around a problem with booting from the disks. The problem I have with the disks is that after the the first module disk is loaded I get a panic with can't mount "" please specify a valid ... I've tried specifying /dev/ram assuming the root filesystem is loaded into ramdisk with no luck i'm currently using the parameters "manual mem=96M" I need the memory parameter for the older esia bus machines Any help or suggestions appreciated Andrew