I have a 1.2 Ghz Athlon box that I have had RedHat 7.1, Windows 2000 pro and NT4 workstation install and be quite stable on a given box.

However, I can not install RedHat 7.2 nor 7.3 on the same box. I have tried using different installing options, installer CDs, boot floppies, upgrading from RH 71, and different harddrives and I always end up with the same problem.

EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
cramfs: wrong magic
FAT: unable to read boot sector

After getting this error, I can turn around and install RH 7.1 or W2k pro without issue.


Any suggestions?

When you first installed RH 7.1, did you install it before or after Windoze? If before, Windoze could be the problem... Unfortunately I am not quite sure what to do... Just a suggestion that may (or may not) give you an idea.

I have installed M$ on this computer and hard drive before. However I have since fdisk /mbr and deleted all of the partitions using a WinMe and a 98se boot disk.

fdisk /mbr just cleans the Master Boot Record of any bootloaders (LILO or GRUB) that may have been installed there.

I was actually aiming at the fact that Windoze (2000 and XP) sometimes overwrites the MBR, hence messing up LILO/GRUB and not letting you load Linux.

I finally got the installer for RH 7.3 start. I used a 98se boot disk (w/CD drivers), then ran the script D:\dosutils\autoboot.bat and the installer launched and I installed RH 7.3 without issue.

Thanks for responding to my post sewer_monkey.