RHEL5 installation problems BIG TIME PROBLEMS!!
 

Hello everyone, big noob to linux here and I decided to go with rhel5. Let me lay out the scenario:
I had a vista 64 bit installation on a (3) SDD 500gb disk array of RAID 0, now I have two other disks. A HDD 80GB IDE and a SDD 1TB. I tried installing RHEL5 on the HDD when the RAID 0 array was present. It wouldn't load and I ended up getting the good ol' grub error. So being an idiot and for whatever reason I don't know I deleted the raid 0 array and went to reinstall RHEL5, now at this point I don't even care about the data on all those disk, I have an external terabyte with all my torrents and such which is all i cared about.

-I just want to reformat or delete all these partitions from these disk and start fresh. (How can I do that with the rhel5 live dvd i made from an iso?)

-When I go to install rhel and i finish installing and reboot, it just takes me to a shell prompt where I log in as root and gives me no GUI, however when I try startx a bunch of stuff scrolls down the screen and then the screen just stays blank. (why?)

-I also can't run the installation unless it is in text mode, otherwise i just get another blank screen.

-I cannot boot my Windows Vista installation disc. (any reason for this?)

All help is more than appreciated.
Erich

bump

If as you say, you don't care about what's already on the system, then a default install of RHEL, allowing RHEL to choose partitioning etc should work.
By default it should install a GUI if you choose it (iirc).
Do choose to add another user apart from root (occurs near end of install).
If you get a text login, as you have now, then indeed login as the non-root(!) user and try startx.
If you don't get a GUI, post the error msgs at this point, along with your HW specs, especially graphics card & monitor.

Thanks, I used a ubuntu cd to delete all partitions from my disks just because it was quicker. It will not however allow me to install with a a GUI, like I said before I just get a blank screen after it probes for my video card which is an ATI HD4870. When I did the install in text mode I do not remember having the option to create another user (although I may have missed it). Just out of curiosity why would I have to create a new user to be able to "startx"? Why not just the root?

Its just a good idea to have a non-root user generally. I phrased that badly.
I know that in Fedora, you can't login as root at the GUI, it's a security thing. Not sure if that functionality has been ported to RHEL yet.

You can use startx as a root in RHEL. It wont even warn you about your user status. But it is meant to be used when absolutely necessary and then log out of the session once you are done with your work.
RH, I guess, did not think of disabling root as RHEL is mostly used on servers where administrators would need that user every now and then.