I'm attempting to install SuSE 8.1 Pro boxed version on my computer, and it has stalled every time immediately after creating root and user accounts during install. I do a hard reboot, luckily the bootloader works, but if I try to run Linux, it stalls when it reaches "Starting hardware scan on boot" after a bit of hard drive activity.

I'm trying to set it up as a dual boot with Win98 on my primary 80 GB hard drive, and Linux on my secondary 40 GB hard drive. Install works fine up until that point, as the last several times I've used default options as much as possible.

Computer:
Athlon 900 TB running on a Abit KT7A mobo, with 512 MB PC133 ram.
MSI Geforce4 4200 vid card, 128 MB
Phillips Rhythmic Edge sound card (probably doesn't have support)
Both hard drives are Maxtors
Modem: Zoom V.92 Fax Voicemodem (Support doubtful, but I don't think it's a winmodem)
CD-RW: Lite-On 32x12x40

I'm a reasonably skilled windows user, though I have next to no Linux experience (Once, a long time ago, there was a version of Red Hat on my computer, but it was lost in the long tortuous death of my old hard drive). Any ideas?

Check the jumpers on the disks and cdrom.
Look at Suse:s site, it helped me sometimes.

I checked the jumpers, none of them appeared to be misplaced. I tried switching the CD-RW to cable select just to see if it had an effect, it doesn't.

I've been searching the SuSE database, but haven't found anything so far that seems to match my problem, so far at least.

*bump*

What exactly comes next in the process of install after creating root and user accounts? When it hangs, there's usually next to no hard drive access, so I'd guess it's something rather early in the hardware scan that trips it up, if it's some piece of hardware that's causing the problem.

http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/wessels_failsafe.html
Also check in bios, disable "pnp os" (plug and play os)
Hope this helps.

Thanks for the link, there's some useful stuff there. Tried again with PnP OS and APIC disabled, and got no change. I also ran the memory check, which turned up no errors after ten hours of running. I'll try going back through and changing some more BIOS options, like turning off APIC to see if it has an effect. Are there any other pieces of hardware that could be tripping up the install?

If the modem is an internal one, it's probably not supported.
Try to take it out and see what happens.
Internal modems are not very much liked in the Linux/Bsd world.

I had a similar problem installing SuSe 8.2
The failsafe mode worked for me, (combo offered when starting to install)
could have been the no dma command

My problem during install was an indefinite freeze where the HD activity light remained on for the duration.