If BeOS hangs during the boot process, the cause may be limitations in BeOS‘ ability to work with the PIO to which the CD-ROM drive is currently set.
For example, I had a Samsung 32x CD-ROM and I installed BeOS without a problem. A couple of weeks ago, I upgraded the hard disk and installed a Sony 40x CDROM. After that, I couldn’t boot far enough to even begin the BeOS installation — it hung on the 5th icon in the splash screen. [Editor’s note — the 5th icon means all boot drivers and modules have been initialized successfully.]
Because BeOS was working on this PC previously, I knew it must be either the CD or new Quantum Hard Disk. The solution was to enter the BIOS and change the PIO mode of the Sony CD-ROM from 4 to 3 (all CD-ROM and hard disk drives have been set to at least 4 for several years now). That did the trick — BeOS then booted and installed just fine.