Here goes:

I have:

a. A working Linux / Windows Box (box A)
b. a formatted old Pentium (Box B)

Mission :
Install Linux on Box B

I loaded all kinds of rescue diskettes off the net but I still
can't load a bootable linux on to the hard drive.
any advice on building a mini linux system on a formatted
HD without recompiling everything?
Thanks in advance
NGraphiX

what's the hardware on the old pentium? Does it have a cd-rom?, or just a floppy drive?

What's the problem??? You can't boot with Linux Installation Cd? Old Pentium BIOS mostly don't support Cd-Rom, so you will need a boot disk. Most (all?) distrib have floppy disk you can use to make your cd available for install.

I have Slackware running on a P120, it was not a big deal, I just created 2 floppy disk (one for boot and another for command line) with the installation cd. But distribution are not all the same. Take a look to the read me of "your" distrib.

yeah, but he still has not said if he even has a cd-rom on that pentium at all!

sorry yes I do have a cdrom drive just I don't feel like downloading 640M! I have two RHAT distro's (7.2 & 5.1)
but both keep crashing in the middle.
I've tried Installing the hard drive onto the working linux box
but I did'nt know quite how to make a bootable linux system.
Cheerio, NGraphiX

I bought Slackware and Mandrake but I'll have to wait a few
weeks. any solutions now?

How big is the disk? And do you have a network connection between the two machines?
You can use 4 types of installation:
1) Standard from cdrom
2) Installation from hd (requires space for files, not less than one cd=650megs)
3)Network installation. CDs copied to second machine disk (accesed using nfs, ftp or www, you need to install one of three servers). You need an image floppy(floppies) for network installation.
4)Installation after moving hd from machine B to A. You can just install as usual. Boot from installation cd, partition hdb, install on it. NOTE: You'll need to make some changes to make this installation work after plugging the disk back to machine B (for example replace all hdbx by hdax in /etc/fstab).

the problem seems to be my redhat CD's .so I can't really do any of the above 4. I would prefer to install a small distro or buildmy own somehow coping files from one HD to the other. I just don't know what files I have to copy and how to make the disk bootable.

Thanks again..
NGraphiX

It looks that LFS is a solution for you...
It's quite hard to copy a system. Maybe follow LFS instructions, but don't compile, just copy.

How do I copy ? do I just copy the binaries off my current
HD? don't they have to be comiled sme special way?!!

I'll Try .. Thanks and cross your fingers...

You can jsut copy the binaries.