Problem Installing Red Hat 7.2

[dolemitecomputer]

I am helping a friend install Red Hat 7.2 on his computer. He has the following hardware:

ThunderBird 1.2 GHZ
Abit KT7A
256 generic memory
Matrox G450 ETV
Hercules Fortissimo sound card
Liteon CDRW 16X
Pioneer DVD 116
Seagate Barracuda 80 GIG 7200 RPM

The drive has windows 2000 installed and we made a partition of 10 GIG with the EXT2 file system and a 300 meg swap file using Partition Magic. We reboot and run the install. I have Red Hat let me select to make the partition. The same partition (10 GIG) is made root with the EXT2 system and also the same swap file. It givse some error about the partition and prompts to make boot disk but I continue anyway. The install runs perfect but once I reboot as soon as it gets to the "Press I for Interactive Setup" and around the point of USB file system I get several errors. Seems to be an address and I receive a kernel panic error. Also something about virtual or swap memory but it goes by too fast to read. Once I reboot into windows and run Parition Magic it finds some type of geometry errors and corrects them but Linux still gives the same error. I have installed the same distro on two other computers close to what they have and it worked fine. Any help? :D

[PolyPill]

I'm not sure what's causing this as I've never heard this happen before. How large is this hard drive. If it's at the end of a very large disk Ive heard of problems, although I though they were all fixed in the latest versions. Also could be an old bios crapping out over a large drive.

[k_lined4lyf]

I'm running 7.2 now, and i can't say I've had the same probs myself, except for the Partition Magic errors. It seems to report that my partitions, or my partition table is misaligned. I get similar messages during Linux install, but it says if I ignore it, it may cause (fixable) problems with some bootloaders. I tend to ignore, going with the "If it ain't broke...." mentality.
Ok enuff of that... i would suggest you check the memory - maybe swap it out and see what happens. I can't see why USB would cause any problems during startup because you'll either get a green "OK" or a red "FAILED" as far as I can see. Also, when it suggests that you make a boot disk, agree with it. That extra minute might save you a headache. If you did make one... try it and see what happens.
And if it's OC'd... try crankin' 'er down.

I'm no expert... just spittin' out some ideas.

K

[dolemitecomputer]

The partition is at the end of the drive and I was thinking that might be a problem (?). I haven't had a chance to place a partition at the end and place the Linux partition in the middle but I am going to try that. I don't think it could be a USB problem either but it goes by so fast I cannot see where exactly it stops at.

[k_lined4lyf]

That's why I think you should try making a boot disk during your next install. I've gotten messages during previous installs of RH informing me that I chose to put my Linux partition beyond the 1024 cylinder boundary and that I should make a boot disk to ensure that I can get to my OS. I always did anyway, mainly because I didn't want lilo on my MBR. I'm sure the 1024 boundary won't be a problem with a boot disk. The other two boundaries (2G and 8.4G) I'm not sure about. I'm runnin a RH7.2 with software RAID (poor man's RAID made from hda6, which is the last 2G of a 30G drive, and hdb5). Boots fine w/o incident.

K

[k_lined4lyf]

Just found out how you can catch your error message. Push the scroll lock button after it says "Press I for interactive startup." That should pause the bootup process, and thus the screen outputs until you press scr-lock again. It only pauses the bootup after it says "Press I...." though - you can't stop the initial kernel hardware detection, etc.

Hope that helps,

K

[dolemitecomputer]

Well I tried changing the partition location and that made no difference. The funny thing is that I tried installing Mandrake 8.0
and that worked perfect. No errors. Go figure. :D

[supraway]

I had the EXACT problem, only no error when installing. About half way through initializing, it gives me huge memory dumps right onto the screen and a Kernel panic. Computer is a Duron 800 @ 800, 133 fsb... 256 megs Kingston ram, Abit KT7-E, WD 4 gigabyte ATA 66 hard drive, Diamond TNT2 Ultra card, 3com 3c509 network card.

I had Redhat 7.0, then broke the kernel updating video drivers, formatted, installed Redhat 7.2, didnt work, installed 7.0 again.

I have tried installing without the network card, different hard drives, different setup options, etc. with no avail. I never did switch memory though...

I wonder if it could be Abit or their BIOSes?