I also posted this in the SuSe forum. By the nature of the specific distributions I was not sure where these questions should be.


I have SuSe Enterprise 9x installed on a Dell PowerEdge sc240. I am wanting to install Debian over top of the current distro. It really does not matter what distro I try to install it just seems to hang. I have tried others.

However, if I go back to the old SuSe install disks it comes up with no problem.

Is there something I need to do to get another distro to overwrite this installation of SuSe?

Also, is there something I can do to format this SATA drive without a floppy drive?

I do not have another system / computer so moving the internal drive over and formatting FAT is not an option.

The big question would be.. Will formatting fix this issue?



Thanks,
b

If it is you,re intention to replace suse with a other distro
Just install de new distro on the place now occupied by suse and replace
suse boatloder with the boot loader of the new distro



all the best

Thanks for the response ronlau9,
Yes, it is my intention to replace SuSe with Debian. I am not sure I quite understand what you are saying... Are you saying just overwrite the current SuSe installation much like one would do with say a gz/zip file?

Or just specific files? The problem is with getting Debian (4.0r1) to install from the CD. It just hangs... This I might add is a purchased release on CD. I know the CDs are good.

I was wondering if the current installation of SuSe is preventing the installation and perhaps reformatting the SATA would make it possible.

Also when I go back to the original SuSe Enterprise(9x) installation disks is starts the installation process immediately. Which tells me the CD Drive itself is functioning properly.

I should also add that the Debian CD hangs on the load part. So it reads the CD and I hit return at the [Boot] prompt and it hangs. I also try different boot parameters... i.e install / installgui.. etc... and it gives the loading prompt... and stays there indefinitely.


Thanks for the support,
b

I mean that suse occupies a hole disk or partition on the disk the distro should placed here
I have used for a while Mephis When Mephis came up with installation proposal I just choice the expert option and give
the old space to Mephis and replace the boot loader with the boot loader of mephis It was Novell suse 9.3

An other option mentioned in the administration guide of suse 9.3 put the mbr back in place deleted the partition
and format but than you need to have partition magic of some think like that

But as a real fan I am back with Suse Because I use suse from suse 7.3 on I am used to it

I hope this answer may help you


all the best

This is for Sarge, but the install for Etch should be pretty similar.

http://mikebanahan.com/Linux/installingsarge.php

Maybe something here will provide a clue. The Install for Debian should allow you to choose to use the whole hard drive, or manually partition to remove the Suse stuff.

Thank you farslayer,
I will look through this and see if it helps.


Thanks for the support,
b