It sounds like the Anaconda update disk was not properly written, which is somewhat easy to do.
So that you and others can follow the instructions contained in the various threads, let me start at the beginning. What you are doing is downloading an update for the Anaconda installer, which is used on all current RedHat and Fedora distributions. You will write the update to a floppy and then use the floppy during the installation process. This approach has obvious limitations on laptops.
0) If steps 1-3 fail, you may need to boot into linux rescue and delete any partitions that were created during the previous failed installation. This can be done using linux fdisk .
1) Download the update image file from
http://people.redhat.com/~katzj/fc3-part-upd.img This is from Bugzilla posting
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla....cgi?id=138419 (see comments 2 and 62).
2) Copy the image to a floppy using the instructions at
http://rhlinux.redhat.com/anaconda/updatedisks.html
In windows:
2a) Rename the Anaconda update image to something like updates.img, so that the image name conforms to the dos 8.3 naming convention.
2b) To make things simple, copy both the update image and rawrite.exe to C:\. If you do not have rawrite.exe, it can be downloaded from
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linu...i386/dosutils/
2c) From Start > Run, start the cmd utility (command line).
2d) From “dos” command line, change to the root directory and call rawrite:
c:
cd \
rawrite
which should give a dialogue like this:
C:\>rawrite
Enter disk image source file name: updates.img
Enter target diskette drive: a:
Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and press -ENTER- :
C:\>
The reason for not running rawrite.exe using windows explorer is so that you will be able to see error messages.
3) Start the linux installation process, but at the initial prompt enter:
linux updates
You will be prompted for the update floppy during the installation process.