The title says a lot of it. I had a HD with FC3 on it die, so I tried to do gentoo on a different HD, a Western Digital Caviar 36400 6GB. I got most of the way through, but grub never worked. I tried doing the same with SUSE, didn't even make it through that, package errors. Zenwalk, L 99.... Knoppix install script: 'Error 2' with menu.lst set up right.

Any suggestions, and could it be the hard drive itself?

Something like this?

Yeah, sorta, only I got L 99 instead of L 01. So you're suggesting I wipe the MBR?

You have to clarify. What exactly is your problem? Was it the boot loader or you just could't install the distro.

You need to have the system fully installed first.

If the Linux doesn't boot you can still boot up a Live CD to rescue it.

Lilo need a re-validation every time you amend /etc/lilo.conf. A boot screen starting with L means Lilo could not boot up your system. That is all. Howver you can still access to an unbootable Linux by change root to it to do repair, including replicate its boot loader again, put it on a floppy etc.

Also how did your FC3 die? Was it a hardware failure of the hdd or the Linux has been damaged and fails to work?

FC3:Hard Drive died.
Multiple distros installed great (minus SUSE, package errors), installed the bootloader(in all distros), rebooted, taking out the disk, and bootloaders (Lilo and Grub) gave errors.

Note: found one problem while using grub floppy when I tried Knoppix: It was trying to boot my Reiser partition. Trying Knoppix again without ReiserFS

I assume you are running just the 6Gb WD disk as the master. The simplest you can do is to have one swap and one partition for /.

Grub occupies the MBR and wouldn't give a toss what filing system you are using. Grub is booting 50+ system in mine and I am sure I have a couple of Linux in Reiser filing system.

As a rule both Grub and Lilo boot the / (root partition).

I suggest you stick with one distro and have it resolved first by reporting the error message.

Linux boot loaders need only the accurate knowledge of the root partition and then the kernel name (also initrd if used).

Finally got it to work, the one disk I hadn't tried, a Debian 3.1 netinst.

GRUB and LILO always conflict with Windows. And GNU GRUB is not so robust, causing many problems during boot.

So try GRUB for DOS please. It is a cross-platform boot loader based on GNU GRUB. The GRUB.EXE can be started from DOS/Win9x; and GRLDR can be started from BOOT.INI of Windows NT/2K/XP/2003; and even more, the GRUB.EXE can be started from LINUX via the KEXEC tool.

By using GRUB.EXE or GRLDR, you don't have to touch your MBR. It is the safest way coexisting with DOS/Windows.

You needn't install GRUB for DOS. Just run GRUB.EXE from DOS, or append a line of "C:\GRLDR=START GRUB" into your BOOT.INI(restart and select the "START GRUB" menu item), that will do.

Download GRUB for DOS here: http://freshmeat.net/projects/grub4dos/

There is a fat12grldr.img file with the GRUB for DOS release. You can create a GRUB bootable floppy with this fat12grldr.img file.

Or, you can just copy GRUB.EXE to your DOS floppy and run GRUB.EXE to enter the GRUB environment.

If the system has no DOS/WINDOWS, you may use the bootlace.com utility to write GRLDR boot record onto the MBR.