ok so total linux noob here......you can assume i know squat about linux

trying to install FC3. it boots from the 1st cd just fine and from what i can gather, the cd-rom is recognized by the installer. when all the lines of text are flying by (I assume its finding all the hardware and mountng the devices) i see some stuff with the name of the cd-rom, like its mounting it.

aside: is there a way to freeze this stuff to see whats going on ? do i need this info to troubleshoot the install ?

but when i select "local cd-rom", it says it cant find the disc. also when i hit enter to select "local cd-rom", the hard drive light goes off, like somehow the kernel thinks the hard drive is the cdrom ? it booted from the cd-rom okay, so why cant the installer find it ?

i did verify the checksums before i burned and they matched.....

During the installation time , you can access 5 virtual consoles Alt-F1 to Alt-F5


Alt-F1 the installer prgrm in text mode

Alt-F2 A bash shell

Alt-F3 A log of installer messages

Alt-F4 A log of kernal messages

Alt-F5 stdout from mke2fs and grub commands

Alt-F7 installer prgm in Graphical mode

Check the install media first(source cd's), corrupted or not.

wow...lotta stuff there. which one should i be looking at ? how can i verify that the kernel has recognized and properly mounted the cd-rom ? does it matter how i have the physical devices set up ? hard drive is primary master and cd-rom is secondary master

how do i do that ? should I just burn another cd from the same iso image ? or maybe re download the iso for the first disc ? besides using md5sum, is there another way to test the install cds ? install wont get far enough to do the mediacheck thing.....

Check these two's

Alt-F3 A log of installer messages

Alt-F4 A log of kernal messages

I think your cdrom \settings are correct in your your bios,because the cd-rom is recogonized by the installer.


Try to use some other source file,before starting actual installation you can check all your source media.

Also I would try to avoid running your CD rom and HDD from the same IDE cable, this can slow your HDD down a lot. try setting your CD to secondary master (ie CD as master on the second IDE Channel of your HDD) using a second cable.

Also, what processor are you using? I have had some customers that have had problems with shuttle systems and laptops with this fedora core; the Kernel has problems detecting the processor causing no end of problems!

Please leave your PC info so we van check for H/ware conflicts, cheers!

In case you didn't know, FC4 is already out. You may want to install that instead of FC3 so that you can skip one upgrade in the future.

-Sarav

funny you should say that cuz i downloaded all the isos for FC3 Saturday night, then I noticed that FC4 is coming out the next day !!!! I decided to stick with FC3 just to force myself to go through an upgrade and see what that process is like. Installing to a clean box is (relatively speaking) easy. upgrades are a pain. so i think it'll be a good learning experience. right ?? *starts to sweat* lol !!!!

that did the trick. i downloaded the iso for disc 1 again, reburned it and it worked.

however, my success was short lived. after completing the install, i reboot and now i get as far as

"GRUB "

i cant type anything in and it just sits there. is GRUB not able to find the linux partition ? During the install, no other OSes were detected and I did select Fedora as the default OS to load. I also selected the "default" option for partitioning.

I'm using a hard drive that had 98 on it and i didnt clean it or anything before the install. Is the boot sector from 98 causing problems ? or does the install program usually do a good job of cleaning out all previous data ? Should I use fdisk to remove all DOS/Windows partitions then try to install again ?

thanx for all the help so far.....

sounds like a bad install of GRUB. Where did you select to install the bootloader? I would suggest installing it in the master boot record (MBR) since historically Linux could not install it past the 1023rd cylindar (or was it the 1024th?) this should no longer be a constraint but having had issues in the past... Also did you just use the first CD or did you do a full install of FC4?

RE the win98 issue, if you have selected to use all available disk space then FC4 should have erased your windows partition, if not then it still should not cause a problem, Linux co-exists happily with other Os's, something that MS has yet to learn!

i am installing FC3 and yes I used the 4 CDs to install. i selected GRUB during the FC3 install. There were options for other bootloaders. should i pick another one ? I picked the "automatic partition" option, since i dont know anything at all about Linux partitions and setting them up. so it chose were to put GRUB (and I have no idea where that is unless someone shows me how to find it) next tryi'll write down all the partition info.

im installing FC3. yes i selected to use all available disc space. i think i'll boot to a windows floppy and either use fdisk to remove all partitions or i think maxxtor has a utility that does a "low level format" which to my understanding, formats the dirve to the state that it was in when it rolled off the line. ill report back......

thanx for the responses so far.