RH9 boot failure

[mattg2k4]

I just installed RedHat 9 for the first time (my first linux install ever) today on an old compaq, with a pII 266mhz. It was running fine for most of the day with a few reboots and addition of more ram and a different soundcard.

Then I decide to add another hard drive as the 3GB in it is running low. So I get out an old 20GB Quantum Fireball and install it, adjust jumper settings, and so forth. The compaq recognizes the drive and adds it. The boot process goes just fine until right when the login window comes up. It reached the part where it had a little text login screen, and then the screen goes blank and up comes the graphical one. However, the screen would alternate between completely blank and gray for a little bit, the text login screen would pop up for half a second, and this kept going on with the graphical login window never appearing.

I reboot from the power button and look in the bios. It has the hard drive size detected fine, but all the info on cylinders, heads, and sectors is blank. Could that be a factor? I tried taking the hard drive out, but this problem is still happening.

Any ideas on what went wrong and how to fix it? I'm not keen on the idea of reinstalling linux if I don't have to.

[fudtone]

Try booting from the Linux CD and see if it cant repair it.

Linux is a bit sensitive when it comes to changing boot sector info on the fly.

Ah the joys of Linux... figure it out so you can help me the next time I crash mine.

[bailey]

I am learning fast to hate linux red hat ver 9,0
or any other version

[mattg2k4]

I couldn't get it working even after runnin linux rescue from the CD, so i broke down and reinstalled it, this time setting it to boot to text mode since the problem seemed to exist only when starting x-windows.