I have a redhat9 cd (actually 3 downloaded and burned copies) and just cant get it to innitialize installation when I boot. how do I make or get the image file? how do I get something started ? my system can boot from cd drive perfectly, 'cause I'm using partioned hd. your help apprciated.

"My system can boot from cd drive perfectly" Meaning, you installed a linux distro previously with success ? "... 'cause I'm using partitioned hd" uh sorry but you can boot from cd even with no partitions on the hd. DO you mean you're prepared to boot and install a dual-OS system because you've got multiple partitions already in place? Ok not giving you a hard time. Just trying to clarify where you are. As for the cd's themselves - rh9, cd1,2,3. What is on them? Please don't tell me one 650MB+ iso file on each. How did you burn the cds? Roxio or Nero or ?? Shrike -RH9- installed from downloaded images fine on this PC. I'm sure just a small tweak in your process will get you the same result. Regards johnny i

Please explain.

Thank you for your reply, please let me make it more clear. The HD is 10gig which is partitioned into 2. I installed win 2000. on 4gig which was installed smoothly with no problem. But when I insert the RH9 cd 1 for installation (on the second partition) in the cd drive nothing just came up in the screen.(Note: these 3 RH9 cd's are downloaded copies - I burned them with Nero burner). You mentioned distro ,I did not install such. First I thought about installation disk (although my pc boots from cd drive correctly), I tried to create it from the RH9 cd 1 but couldnt 'cause when I insert the RH9 cd 1 and boot and begin my system from command prompt, I just cannt access the content of the cd ! later I used Rawrite to do this (I typed: F:\images\boot.img -d a: -n) but the system returns a message saying "invalid file name or directory" . Please I just want an instruction of what to do so that when I put the cd 1 in its drive, and boot the system for RH 9 installation something will begin to happen,'cause nothing comes up in the screen , nothing just happens.

ok ian, although I still pretty new to linux I do have experience with several installations. Almost all of them have started with a download of .iso files. My latest two were RH9 and Peanut Linux (latest release). Both went very smoothly. You mention installation disk and rawrite; I'm guessing you're trying to create floppy disk(S) for install. This is not necessary in most cases (esp. with any reasonably new machine). When creating install cds from .iso, I use adaptec easy cd creator, and select "create cd from cd image". Nero may have a similar option. Once you have done that you should have no problem booting with that cd in the primary drive. I'm sure your bios is set to boot from cd, right? The main thing is to be sure install cd 1 (&2,&3) contain a directory tree, not just an .iso file. You can verify that before reboot with windoz explorer. HTH

Thank you so much for your advice, it seems I'm narrowing towards the main course of problem. I now understand that creating the installation disk is not so necessary. You see the main problem is that as I downladed these RH9 3cds, burned them on cds with Nero CD burner, if I use windows explorer to view the content I just cant open it, ok I went back and tried to view (not the burned cd copies)the saved copy which is in the current drive still I cannot open it.Theres always a pop window that says windows cannot open this file !. I did something like trying to unzip but I got a message telling me that it's not a zipped file. Also I tried to view it from DOS promp but got a message telling me invalid directory or file name ! So then I just cant see if these cds contains also a directory tree or not. I'm just confused I dont know if I'm dealing with the right RH9 or not, I downlaoded them from: ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/9/en/iso/i386/ Looking forward to your further responce.

Hello. I have the same problem. I have a linux box that can boot from CD. I installed RH6.2 from CD (box set) and figured I'd download/burn/install RH9 so I'd have the latest version. I have tried this several times with both Easy CD Creator and Nero. (Yes, I burned FROM the *.iso images and yes I can see directory trees and yes I did md5sum to make sure they matched.) Yet, when I put the CD in the CD drive, reboot the linux machine the following happens: When probing the CDROM, it finds a bootable CD, but continues running from the hard drive. And that's extremely puzzling. I've burned CD1 at a "bootable CD" from an image file trying to emulate A:, HD, and None (options to choose for boot emulation) and they all have the same effect as above. One last comment: I'm burning from windows as I do now have a cd-rw on the linux box and I haven't tried the bootdisk (floppy) option as the linux box does not have a floppy drive. This has been EXTREMELY frustrating, Redhat's not shed any light and I can't go on... (ok, enough drama... :) PHIL