Hey, y'all...i am a to this world of Linux, though i have been intrigued about it for some time...
I recently got a new hard drive for my pc, and figured it might be a good idea to learn how to use linux by installing it on what was formerly my main drive...so I have heard a lot over the years about 'radhat' and decided to go in that direction.
I was able to find a distro of redhat9 that I was able to d/l and burn the iso's...made myself a boot cd and I thought I was all ready to go...UNTIL

I booted up from the cd, chose graphical install, did a media check and again all was well, and went to proceed with the install. It started initializing anaconda, the went searching for hardware - found 'intel 845 graphics' and 'unknown monitor', 'generic 3 button mouse' ..then i am not sure what happened, but I thought it said something about "Waiting for server" and a countown like this "1....2....3....4..." appeared on the screen.

THEN the screen goes black, the drives seemingly stop working, and nothing else happens...

Now I am wondering if this is a hardware issue? or maybe I am doing something wrong?

The video card the monitor is connected to is a GeForce5200fx 128mb NVIDIA board...NOT the built in INTEL 845 graphics...just in case, I switched my monitor from the Geforce back to the proprietary graphics...but the same result...blackness...

so I am really confused...maybe someone out there can help me or has had the same issue...or maybe you can let me know about a better distro altogether... I am looking to learn about linux and eventually create a web server and irc chat server...

***ALSO, if I AM able to install 2 seperate OS's (windows and linux) on 2 seperate drives, how can I switch between the 2?***

Here ar my pc specs if it helps.
p4 2.0gHz
512mb ram (266mHz)
GeForce5200fx 128mb NVIDIA board
120mb seagate 7200rpm HDD (main drive)
60mb hitachi 5400rpm HDD (secondary drive - this is to be the linux drive
48x Cd-rw
4x dvd-r

I thank you all in advance for your input...

Mikeskeetr

Sounds like it may be a hardware issue.
Try a more up-to-date distribution - redhat9 has been out for quite a while now. They're all much of a muchness although everyone has their preferences. For ease of installation in my experience try mandrake or fedora core 3, they have very easy graphical installation interfaces.
Install windows first - It will totally overwrite the MBR if you try to install it after Linux
Install your bootloader for linux (lilo or grub) to the MBR- you can configure it during installation to give you a menu of operating systems at bootup (windows or linux in your case)

thanks for the input...i took your advice and got Fedora Core 3...using it right now! Its like I now have 2 computers in one, which is cool, but this one I have to get used to and customize to my liking...

But again, thank you for the info...realy helped a lot!!!

Mikeskeetr