I just installed red hat, everything seemed to go fine. But, i cant start it, all i get is an L

it is driving me crazy, can anyone assist???pls???

I hope you created a boot disk during install. You will need it to boot with, then if you successfully do that, your going to want to check out your lilo.conf file and make some changes possibly for it to boot right.

From the Lilo documentation:
"L"

The first stage boot loader has been loaded and started, but it can't load the second stage boot loader. The two-digit error codes indicate the type of problem. (See also section ``Disk error codes''.) This condition usually indicates a media failure or a geometry mismatch (e.g. bad disk params)

u didnt have any two-digit error code?

Boot from rescue floppy into Linux.
Open /etc/lilo.conf
Now, if the lines boot= and root= arent the same u installed Lilo in the MBR. Let them point to the partition where u installed Lilo.
Is one of your global options "linear"? If it is, comment it out with a hash in front of it. If not, add a line
with the word linear before the boot= line.
Save/quit.

Now run /sbin/lilo to update lilo

Thanks guys.

Trickykid - I didnt create a floppy startup disk becos i only have a cd rom attached. i have the drive for an external disk but i dont know how to install it.

UnSpawn - do i run those commands at the sh-4...prompt?
What exactly should i type?

Thanku

All commands from ure commandline
to open a text document use ure favourite editor (if any) like:

cp /etc/lilo.conf /etc/lilo.conf.bak (make a backup 1st)
vi /etc/lilo.conf
press "i" to edit, "ESC,u" to undo, and "ESC,:wq" to save

then run
"/sbin/lilo -t -v" (thats test + verbose) to see if it seems ok,
then
"/sbin/lilo -s /boot/lilo.bak (install Lilo & make backup of the bootsector)