I'm new to Linux and have a question on an initial installation.

I'm trying to install Red Hat 8 on a 20 gig drive that has an existing Windows XP installation that I do not need to keep and just plan to write over it.

When I boot up using the boot disk (made using rawrite) it goes thru and initial procedure and it get's to the following:

creating root device
mounting root file system

then the trouble happens...it says

VFS: Can't find ext33 filesystem on ide0(3,1)
mount: error 22 mounting ext3 flags freeing unused kernel memory: 136k freed
Kernal Panic: No Init found. Try passing init = option to kernel

the whole time my keyboard is flashing...

could anyone help me with this problem?

Thanks

O92B

Did you install Linux yet? You can boot the install program from your cd. Go into your bios and change it to boot from the cd-rom drive. Pop in you Linux install cd and reboot.

No I can't boot from CD even though I have my CMOS set to boot from CD it won't do it. But that has been a problem since I put my computer together and it's something that both me and a friend has tried to figure out on a number of occasions.

So i'm stuck booting from floppy and I'm still getting the same problem.

Try to make the install disk again in windows:

1. Insert your RedHat cd-1 into the cdrom drive.
2. Insert a formatted floppy disk into the floppy drive
3. In a dos prompt change to your cdrom drive(i.e. D and change to the dosutils directory
4. type rawrite <enter>
disk image source file name is D:\images\boot.img
target diskette drive is A:
Then it will tell you to insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.

After rawrite is done you should have the boot.img file on the diskette. I'm not sure if this is what you did before but try it again anyway. You should be able to install using the diskette now.

D'oh !

I swear I replied to this yesterday but I guess not.

Crashed :

Well here's my other problem. Everytime I try and make a boot floppy from the CD I startup rawrite (in command prompt mode) and it tells me that it's not a valid win 32 application?

So instead I found a rawrite.exe that I downloaded from the internet and used that to make my originial boot disk. Maybe is that the problem?

Thanks for your help, sorry for the delay in the reply I thought I replied ysterday...wierd.

O92B

It could be that. Does the rawrite.exe program behave like the example I gave you? Do you still write D:\images\boot.img to the diskette?

Yes it does. And when I look on the disk itself I have the following files:

boot.msg
initrd.img
ldlinux.sys
syslinux.cfg
vmlinuz (with no extension)

you meant the floppy? it shouldnt have any 'files' b/c rawrite writes the floppy w/o any hiearchy - you're dos, or whatever wont recognize it.

look on your redhat cd. somewhere under a installation, boot disk, etc. directory there should be a copy of rawrite2.exe

for convenience copy it to your windows directory, and run it from a dos prompt. also, make sure the location of the cd files is correct (you're looking for a boot and root file - this means 2 floppies). first you 'boot', then you put in the second floppy and allow a 'root' to install a temporary linux system - then you use the now detected cdrom for the rest of the install.

cuckopint:

I checked the whole CD and I have the following:

rawrite.exe (this file mentioned earlier gives me the error)

rawritewin.exe (I tried to use this file and it gives me the same error) (this is not a valid win32 application)

BUT, I believe I may have a problem with the CD itself. I try to access the .txt files & .doc files located on the same CD and none of them will not copy to my desktop from within windows. I get errors such as

Cannot open d:\dosutils\rawritewin\readme.txt file make sure a disk is in the drive you specify.

or when I open a .doc file Microsoft word opens and gives me another error.

I burned this CD from an ISO file maybe I got a bad ISO file. Could someone point me to where I can find legitimate ISO's of REDHAT 8? I will try and burn new discs and see if that helps.

Thanks again for all the help...

O92B

It is very important to run a checksum after you download the iso's. Did you run an md5 checksum?

Ok it seems I missed something along the way...i've never heard of an MD5 Checksum? How do I do that and what is it?

http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/verifyiso.html

Cool

Ok I finally have gotten time to get back to my linux project. I downloaded that MD5 Sum checker but I have no clue how to use it. I downloaded the Windows version. But can't seem to get it working...and yes I did read the few instructions...one thing I noticed is that Windows 2000 doesn't have a command folder to put the files in (the link above tells me to put them in the command folder) so I put the files in the root C directory and tried to run it using the instructions on the link. But all I got was an error?

Thanks for the help guys...


[EDIT: On second thought guys I just downloaded the ISO's from the site www.linuxiso.org - so I wrote the ISO to a new cd and tried everything from the start again and I still get the same exact problem. I'm convinced it's not the Linux CD's that's the problem, it's gotta be something on my computer.]

Anyone have any other ideas...