During my 4th reinstallment periond, I looked very carefully at the
formatting options. The files I format will be /boot, /usr, /opt, /temp, & /root. My partitions are:

hda1 10001M
hda2 23M /boot
hda5 2047M <Swap>
hda6 11648M /usr
hda7 11648 /opt
hda8 11648 /temp
hda9 11625 /root

I am still waiting for that demented statement to go away!

Please Help!

Well, after that, making smaller partitions, and you still getting stuck, the only thing that I could tell you are this 4 options:

1) Do you have install RH 7.0 in another computer? Is new this distro or is a download and copy it to a CD? Maybe that CD's are screw up. Try another RH CD's if possible.

2) Change the distro, try to use SuSE, Debian or Mandrake (Pretty much like Red Hat).

3) Upgrade your bios motherboard or read the manual for the harddrive capacity, do not suppose anything, make sure that is supported.

4) The last one, and the worse, It that harddrive ok? If nobody has use all the capacity of the harddrive maybe is dead.

It might take a few minutes, but not hours to format. I do have one question. Right before the formatting starts, there is a option that you can select to "check for bad blocks during format" DO NOT select this option!!!! If this was selected it may be what was taking so long. 40+GB is a lot of blocks. I thinks basically it does a surface scan of the partition if that option is selected. Hope this helps.

Thanks for all your help.

You guys were a little late but I am happy to report that my Linux is up and running!

To SkYzOpReNiCk, thanks for your advice. My hard disk is obviously fine and as ascii2k pointed out, I checked the "check for bad blocks" and that kept me on for HOURS!!!

Now I have only one itsy bitsy problemo. How, oh how do I get to chose which OS I want to boot into at the start of each session?

Thanks for all your help guys !

HHH

BTW, SkYzOpReNiCk, what's W.U.L.?

Good to heard that good news, The problem of choosing which OS you want to boot, lilo will resolve that problem, you only have to add an label in the /etc/lilo.conf, or use linuxconf to mount the w2k paritition, so when you are booting, you should have an menu to choose which OS you wanted to boot.

Good Luck

Excuse my ignorance, but:

1. do I add /etc/lilo.conf to the boot.ini of Win2k?

2. How do I use linuxconf to launch Win2K Partition?

Thanks for your help!!

HHH

Still got that choose OS problem...but after reading a couplt of threads, I think it would be kind of nice if I put up how I got the Penguin to work/walk (not off the plank! >Splash<)

Boot up w/ a RH CD.
Follow their instructions until the point where you choose the istallation type.
Choose CUSTOM installation!
Use Disk Druid to partition (I got a previous partiton already in there)
Create your partitions like this: (Note: Check my threads for my computer specs...and don't have to make the # of Megs the same...put some Hornets!)

hda1 10001M
/boot hda2 23M
<Swap> hda5 2047M
/usr hda6 11648M
/opt hda7 11648M
/temp hda8 11648M
/ hda9 11625M


Then Format everything except the exisiting Win partition
Don't "Check for bad blocks" !!!!!
Choose whatever you feel like as far as packaging goes, want a list of mine...got to ask.
Set up everything else and click Install!

Note: If you checked "check for bad blocks" you'll wait forever!
I got a 60GB HD and I had to wait a whole noght!

Anyway, like I said, I got no clue how to choose OS's.
Wait.... check my other thread "partitioning"
mkhan gave some interesting advice...

Well here is my installation journey. Hope it helps!!

HHH

Do I have to reinstall my sound cards/video cards?
They were already installed in Windows. If I do, do I needto go through something specal?

Quick help appreciated!

Sorry for the delay I have been busy, and also a little sick (the flu) . Ok to choose between OS you have to modify the lilo.conf in /etc.

just insert this inside your lilo.conf with a text editor, if you dont know how to use "vi" I recommend you to use "pico"

other = /dev/hda1
label = Windows
table = /dev/hda

save it and run "lilo". Also will be a good idea to modify the Fstab, if you dont have already mount the windows partition. your fstab should have this lines.

/dev/hda1 /windows/C vfat noauto,user 0 0
/dev/hda5 /windows/D ntfs ro,noauto,user,umask=022 0 0


Of course change the lines according to your type of FIle system that you use under windows. also the mount point.

About the other question, You want to reinstall your video and sound card under linux? If you have to install them under linux, because is another OS, so everything will be different. You have to find out if your Video and Sound Card are compatible with Linux, or if they are drivers for them.

It's probably worth mentioning that the equivilent of 'setting up your video card' in Windows is setting up X (or X Windows as its sometimes called) in Linux... The rest of the system pretty much keeps out of the way where graphics are concerned (although there are a few options relating to your AGP kit in the kernel).

Cheers.

Jamie...

If I were you, I'd let it run overnight. 50G is a lot to format especially if you are doing block checking. I've formatted 4G on slower systems and it has taken about 1 hour. The only thing that matters here is the hard drive speed. A 7200RPM drive is about 50% faster than a 5400 RPM drive. I don't care if your micro runs at 10000Ghz, the hard drive speed is the main factor.

Also there is a Linux+NT-Loader mini howto that you can get a copy of at http://www.linuxdoc.org.
It is also helpful to check item 3 at:
http://ctdp.tripod.com/os/linux/usersguide/index.html
It contains some step by step instructions for installing Linux and Windows 2000 based on the howto.

For the people who want to know what is W.U.L.

That means. Windows User Looser



See ya.

Deleted

You need to install windows 2K first, then install Linux. Linux will recognise the Win2K partition as NT. But windows must be installed as a Network file system (NTFS) but it can be istalled as a FAT32. When Windows has been installed and configured ie. Defrag the (HUGE) hard drive, reboot with the Linux CD in and the first instalatiol page of Mandrake will appear. When configuring your Mount point etc that must be described as / (root) about 1 Gig of hard drive is more than sufficient, the next partition will be your /Swap space only 128mb (min) is needed here or more if you like. The next partition is /usr which could use what is left on your hard drive. After that your ready to go! Forgot to say that when the installation first shows what partitions are left on your HD windows should be seen. Whatever you do dont format this. (Disaster);-(