Hey all, I'm a newb here...
I wanted to get into Linux, so I bought SAMS Teach Yourself "Red Hat Linux 8" book, which comes with RedHat Linux 8.0 (in 2 CDs).
The book has clear instructions on how to install and I was pretty confident.

I run on a 333Mhz, Pentium II system with 64MB memory with Windows on drive C and drive D free. So it's partitioned with 1 HDD.

I start the the graphical installer and I do everything fine (I guess). I do the partitions with the /boot, swap and root (with 100MB for boot, 128MB for swap and remaining for root). It's fine till it reaches "About to Install" screen, confirming I want to go ahead.

I click Next to go ahead, and it says "Formatting / File System..." which is fine and after that bar completes, something about boot. As soon as that bar is done, the system automatically restats and sends me back to the initial main screen (one with the options for text, graphical, recovery etc...).

I didn't know what to do so I pressed enter to start the installation and for a second or so it displayed the "Copying files to drive" (or something) and again replaced the screen with the first installation screen - "Welcome".

This time, no hard disk is detected. Only if I do a cold boot will the system go back to it's pre-install stage.

Can somebody please tell me what's happening here (or what am I doing wrong)? I'd appreciate any help at all...

I've done this twice, same thing. Oh and I did defragmented Drive D (partition) before install.

linux uses its own filesystem. I would guess that the installer could not create the 3 partitions and quit. Delete the D: drive and try again.

Has the install asked u if u would like to make a boot up floppy? Can u be a bit more specific about what it says on the screen it`s a bit tricky to help otherwise :-)

Thanks for your replies

This happens during the part where its "Coping images to hard drive". It either freezes or restarts. I've installed Mandrake 8.2 on that partition, but I'd like to know how to do a RedHat installation because I know I'm going to do that as well. So this is before the boot floppy, before installation

I can only go from a rh9 install...in which case when the files of copied to disk the system reboots and it would seem as if u r beginning the install again but u reach a part where it asks u to make a boot up floppy in which case when u can boot from this if u seem to be unable to boot from your HDD...not an ideal situation but u will then probably find on the next boot it will boot directly from your HDD. Have u tried checking whilst using your windows system to see if there is any data on your D drive? Is your D drive formatted not just defragged does it contain any windows system? If u r still having problems there are other linux distros that u can download free to use alongside windows whilst u `get the hang of things` and plenty of info on here from other threads about linux distros...good luck :-)

Yep, I've loaded Win32 and the linux partition (previously "D:") is not visible or accessible. It's got Mandrake Linux 8.2 installed, and I cannot access the files now. The hang occurs while the image is being copied to the HDD, so I'm not sure whether the CD's at fault, the drive's at fault or lol...

But hey, thanks a lot! Mandrake 8.2 installed great and I'm enjoying it (albiet at a price - my sound doesn't work. Aumix sliders are all up).

Thanks again for your help. I think I'll leave RedHat for later (on another machine).

But yay, I'm part of the Linux community worldwide now!

try using the command alsaconf in a terminal window to get ur sound up and running. u may need to install the alsa-utils rpm from ur cd. If this fails then it could be that ur soundcard is sharing an irq with another piece of hardware which u can check in the bios. But most likely u just need to run the alsaconf tool :-)

Right, thanks! It's working now. I didn't have to do alsaconf for this, though. I fiddled around with the sliders in aumix and Mixer and somehow I got sound after popping in Mob Rules' "Hollowed Be Thy Name" CD :d And then all my mp3s :P

Now all that's remaining is network. What could be the IP address of my network machine running XP (and sharing internet)? 192.*.*.* ? :P

Thanks again!

if u have run the ICS wizard on winxp the default ip addy for that will be 192.168.0.1 (u don`t have to make a floppy to run on the linux system) and u can add ur linux drive as 192.168.0.2 with xp as ur gateway if this has the internet conenction both with subnet masks of 255.255.255.0

Thanks! I tried this, but it didn't work.

Oh, while loading Mandrake, where they load all these other things (with the [ OK ] mark at the side. The eth0 shows [FAILED] and saying something about the IP not being able to resolve or something).

As root in a terminal window u need to edit ur resolv.conf file and add ur dns/ip addy
using a text editor for instance
gedit /etc/resolv.conf when the file opens for editing add

nameserver 192.168.0.1
search localdomain

and set ur network device control to static ip addys