Hi all,

I have a old HP machine running redhat 8.0 without problems. However I wanted to see if this machine could handle Fedora core 3. Because I dit not want to destroy the RH8 installation an there was insufficient room on the disk to add Fedora, I decided to replace the RH8 disk by an empty spare disk.
I installed Fedora without real problems, but is appeared the Fedora was too heavy for this old 166 MHz P1 hardware.
so far so good. So I decided I want the RH8 back so I swapped the disks back.
but not the machine refuses to boot. After the Bios messages I get a black screen and noting else, not even e boor loader.
(in the Bios the disk detection is on Auto)
I grabbed the RH8 installation CD's to see if an "upgrade" would solve the problem. The installation process claims problems with the partiontable.
The geometry from the BIOS differs from the one found by the installation process. The geometry found by the installer is not supported by the Bios.
(mind you, the Bios and this disk are both not changed since purchase of the hardware).

Ok, Is the Fedora installer changing things in the Bios?
could the replacement of the bootloader (grub) change anything.

Who can help me to avoid reinstalling RH8 from scratch.

Rob

Hi,

are you able to determine the cylinders sectors and heads for the disk with RH8 on ? You could try manually entering them instead of relying on Auto. If it is an IBM/Hitachi disk you can usually find technical data on their web site.

The other possibility is whether or not your BIOS allows LBA modes to be changed for the Auto setting, if it does you could try each of the available options to see if one allows the disk to be seen.

If no success can you post more details about the hardware, BIOS and version hard disk model etc.