I have recently been trying to install Red Hat Linux 7.3 (not interested in 8.0 or 9.0 yet) on my Toshiba Portege 7020.

Since it failed every time i tried it with the DVD-dock, giving some obscure media-error or some Seg fault-similair message, i decided to try and just pick out the HD and put it in my stationary computer and install from there..

This works great, no problem at all. Runs smooth too. Then, when i remove the HD and put it back to my laptop, it fails to load the kernel. Reboots the computer as soon as it tries to load the kernel right after lilo.. If anyone has encountered this strange behavior and knows something that might solve it, i would be very pleased and grateful.

(My stationary comp is an AMD and the laptop is an Intel. This shouldn't cause this behavior, right? )

What is the error you get? Is there even an error message?

Could it be a kernel panic?

Cause if so ... then it is most liekly a chipset issue, between the AMD and INTEL sets...

i am not sure what exactly u are trying to do ... is it installing from a hard drive? cause you dont have a cd rom or a burner /

whatever the case, if you are receiving a kernel panic, its because the 2 machines have different chipsets, and IDE hard drives are not meant to be used this way...

What i have trouble with now is that i have installed linux by removing the HD from my laptop and putting it into my stationary computer and installed it there. It runs nice as long as i have the HD in the stationary computer and linux boots and runs nice, but as soon as i remove it and put it back into my laptop it reboots right after:
Loading Linux.................
Uncompressing Linux................ok, booting the Kernel
<REBOOT>

As i said, my stationary is an AMD with a viakt400 chipset and the laptop has some Intel chipset with an old P2 processor.

Are you setting it up as a slave (hdb) on the stationary? If so, it might be having a kernel panic, since it's looking for /dev/hdb/x for the kernel, when it's at /dev/hda/x instead now. I've had that problem before when installing it on one computer than changing it over. Only thing I can think of (in 5 seconds or less)that should cause complete and total faiure of the system.

Did you rebuild your kernel to optimize for AMD? If yes, you may get problem to boot the same kernel on a P2 system. If you really need to boot from same hard disk, try build 2 kernel image, select the appropriate one at OS loader stage. Otherwise, build the kernel for i486 (which will be runable by higher processor).

I know this, coz' was trying to boot a working system on a different PC. It always reboot at the stage where you were. Until I realize I have optimized the kernel to a specific CPU...

Hope this help...

I have a dumb question. Isn't the hardware in your stationery computer completly different from the hardware in your laptop?

Yes, the hardware is completely different.. but it shouldn't matter much since most is plug-and-play and both intel and amd uses the x86-"brain damaged"-arcitecture..
But im thinking about what Timothy Miller said. Maybe its just that simple? How do you tell Lilo where to find its root?

Or Grub for that matter...

Not exactly, if you had rebuild the kernel for specific CPU, say AMD K6, there is optimization run on it, which may use specify instruction that is not available in Intel.

Unless you build for the lowest level of x86, say i386 or i486, then all the instructions should be compatible, but, for K6, K7, Pentium II/III/IV, new instructions have been added which make them different in certain expect.

That is why I ask if you had rebuild the kernel for this? Or did you install the kernel that is targeted for i686 (PII and above).

I'm having the same problem yo!

I think it's the boot image though, cause if you use the boot image off of Disc 1 of RH 7.3 (the vmlinuz "2.4.18-3BOOT" image) it'll boot fine but with problems. The trick is to either get the normal image to boot or find one that'll work.