Problems with attempting to install Fedora Core 3

[akonstam at trinity.edu]

On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 04:54:10PM -0600, Ed K. wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, Matthew Miller wrote:
> >On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 02:20:06PM -0800, Pat Pleate wrote:
> >>1. Even though BIOS indicates CD-ROM device is the first bootable device,
> >>I can't boot from Disk 1 of FC3. 2. Attempted to boot from RH9 bootable
> >>floppy and install FC3 from CD (which can be "seen"), can't do it. 3. FC3
> >>does NOT have the \DOSUTILS dir on the CD, unlike FC1 did, therefore, can
> >>NOT make a FC3 boot diskette. 4. Found FC1, \DOSUTILS on FC1 and created a
> >>boot diskette from that. I can boot but can not install FC3 - indicates
> >>the wrong core.
> >
> >Unfortuantely, the install image is now too big to fit on a floppy, so
> >that's a dead-end route.
> >
> 
> All true, but you can use the existing installation of grub to boot the 
> installation kernel and initial ramdisk. copy the kernel and initrd files 
> from the pxe directory to you boot directory and edit your grub.conf file 
> to something like:
> 
> title FC3 install
>         root (hd0,0)
>         kernel /{kernel filename}
>         initrd /{initrd filename}
> 
I would interested to hear if the above grub solution works. Do we
know whether grub had been installed in the MBR. I am interested in the
fact that the machine can't boot from the CDROM even though the BIOS
says it should. How does the BIOS know the difference between the CDROM
to boot from and a hard disk. If the BIOS says it can boot from the
CDROM it should be possible. I assume booting does not happen from
any CDROM. I would look for a hardware person to fix this. I would
bet something is wrong with the configuration of the machine.

-- 

=======================================================================
Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never
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Aaron Konstam
Computer Science
Trinity University
One Trinity Place.
San Antonio, TX 78212-7200

telephone: (210)-999-7484
email:akonstam at trinity.edu