PCLinuxOS - 2007 -Gnome

I had used PCLOS 2007 before (kde version) but this Gnome is apparently newer.
Previously I had no problem at all getting Pclos to boot from the usb drive without any alterations (which is actually the most common occurrence).
However, this time with the Gnome version, I couldn't get it to boot.
I actually tried my hand at increasing the sleep within mkinitrd from the default 8 seconds to 20 seconds. However, I have to admit that I don't think I did this very well as I'm much out of practice and I neither wrote anything down the last time nor can I find a suitable guide this time.
Cannot explain this. Right now, I'm trying again with the older version but, certainly, I'm going to have to brush up on all of the tricks I learnt 6-8 months ago on how to modify the initrd.img files.