I managed to boot into the text installer for
Scientific Linux 6.1 (which is literally just RHEL minus the branding), and went through every step till I specify "use entire disk"
during install and start the installation process.

At this point, I would see messages saying the installer is
partitioning the hard disk, copying files, etc., then always the same
error:

"An error occurred mounting device /dev/sdb1 as /boot/efi: mount
failed: (9, None). This is a fatal error and the install cannot
continue."

Here is a screen shot via my phone:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/0bd326143256204

Note: /dev/sda is my hard disk, and my USB drive is apparently mounted
in /dev/sdb

I also uploaded the console outputs:

4th console:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/31f323143427738

5th console:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/40b4fa143427758

Looks like from the 4th console it says:

"set SELinux context for mountpoint /boot/efi to system_ubject_r:boot_t:s0"

Followed by the error:

"FSError: mount failed: (9, None)"

Does anyone know what this means and how I can resolve the issue?

Thanks.

did you try formatting the drive to ext3 beforhand
or leaving it just as a blank unformated drive

or
partition it first and then install sl6
I normally make a custom layout first
/boot 100 meg ( 1 gig for fedora )
SWAP 2 to 4 gig
/ 20 gig
/home 20 gig
DATA -- the rest of the drive

then do a "custom" install of sl6

that is what i did for a 10 year old 32 bit box and a new 64 bit computer

I tried to erase the internal HD completely and restarting the install. The installer looked fine, and I made sure my USB drive is not part of the install. However:

1. My USB ended up as /dev/sda while my internal HD is /dev/sdb, this doesn't look right. Even if I successfully install wouldn't the system fail to start once I remove my USB drive?

2. I made sure my USB drive is not listed as a drive for the system to be installed onto, but when I start the installation I get an error saying it can't find the "ISO 9001 install image #1".

Are these two related? How can I alleviate this and continue with the install? Thanks.