Other Help Topics :: Help - DSL can't see HD but only during boot

Hi - this may be a dumb question, I am new to Linux. I have an old machine, 833 MHz with 128 Mb RAM, was running Win98, that I want to put Linux on. If I try to boot off a CD, it works with the DSL -TORAM option, but freezes during boot if I just do DSL, or if I try DSL -TORAM with a saved-options file on the HD. Ubuntu also locks up during boot. Doing a simple DSL -TORAM with no saved options though, it gets up & running, and I can map the HD no problem once it's going, access all my files, etc. My impression is that if Linux has to access the HD during boot it can't for some reason and just freezes, but once it's going it tries maybe a different way (?) and then works. All my other stuff (wireless USB mouse, keyboard, monitor etc) is detected and works perfectly.

Some boot trouble, nothing more..
At which point does it freeze with just "dsl"?

My apologies for the egregious breach of interweb etiquette... we had a baby, and the machine's power supply died (presumably unrelated) and I kind of fell off the net.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa (hits self on head with virtual object).

Thanks anyways though!

BTW I didn't figure out why it does this (the freeze was not at a consistent point), but when I finally did get around to going back to it last week, I thought what the heck and deleted the win98 partition, made a new linux one, and installed DSL on it, and it runs fine off the HD. Boots up faster than my work machine too.

original here.