Red Hat 9 will not start and I get a message saying - "No init found. Try Passing init=option to kernel"

What does that mean and how do I fix it? I am a newbie at this (first time linux install 1 day ago) so please explain step by step.

I have Windows Xp and Red Hat 9 dual booted. How do I set Windows to be the default when Grub (.93) starts? I understand what to change, I just do not understand where to go to change the settings.

Would Mandrake Linux be better for me to install because I am a newbie at this? I have heard Mandrake is easier to use than Red Hat. If yes how do I go about uninstalling Red Hat?

Thanks for any help.

hard to explain but after the kernel has finished booting it loads and runs a process called init, init starts everything else. this error means that for some reason the kernel cant find/load init(usually located at /sbin/init) as for how to fix it depends on the cause, probably easier for you to reinstall.

assuming redhat hasnt put it somewhere stupid, the file you want to change is called menu.lst and its normally found in /boot/grub/

personally i believe all rpm based distros - redhat, mandrake, suse, etc attempt to be windows clones, and hide the details of whats going on, making it difficult to get a real understanding. i would suggest if you want to learn linux then try slackware. as for uninstalling, when you install something else you just delete the partitions you made with redhat.

setting grub to boot windows as defult, on Redhat the file to change is /etc/grub.conf

Theres a line
default 0

It may or may not be there, you can simply add it anywhere near the top. change it to point to Windows. Remeber count starts at 0.

Although I use SuSE and LILO, I still reckon I may be able to help.
I got this messgae, and after hours of messing around looking for the cause, the answer was that when I upgraded my distro, it has misconfigured LILO, stting the wrong partition as the boot partition.
Therefore i'd look at your grub config file (/etc/grub.conf by the sounds) and make sure the root partition is right. This can however only be found from within linux, so either use the red hat bootable CD, and looking at the hard disks partition table or a rescue disk of some sort to boot up using to then find out by typing 'cfdisk' or something similar to have a look at the partition table.
What you are looking for is the partition name, it will be /dev/hda* where * = the partition number, and 'hda' means the first hard disc drive.
I hope this helps, as it is quite complicated to explain, but isn't too bad to actually do.
Good luck :-)

With Grub to change what is booted you can edit the file on the fly. Although it won't be permamnt

When Grub comes up type e this will let you edit what Grub does.

Go down to the line that starts root, and kernel and edit it to match what Geosharp mentioned above, They should look something like

root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-sorsha1 root=/dev/hda6 vga=10 /dev/hdd=ide-scsi

Edit:
root(hd0,4) points too /boot not root. root=/dev/hda6 points to / (Since they're diffrent partitions on my comp) Sorry if the previous post caused confusion.

The /dev/hdd= id for my CDRW, the vga=10 is just to change the resoluion of the consoles so its not important.

Once you've got this right and Linux loads, you can change the /etc/grub.conf file (in RedHat /boot/grub/menu.lst is a symlink to this file).

If you need help finding what the settings for root should be. tell us how your HD is set up, and we can tell you the settings.