Bug 242152

Description of problem:
Downloaded F7 i386 install DVD ISO, verified SHA1SUMs, burned with verify.
Put into a bone stock (no additional hardware) Sony Vaio PCV-RS724G desktop x86
system. GRUB loaded. A linux: prompt flashed on screen for less than a second
and disappears, replaced with F7 graphical install menu that has Install,
Install (text), Rescue, and Boot Disk OS options.
Choosing any of the first 3 options:
vmlinuz ......................
initrd ...............................................
Ready.
System hangs after the word "Ready." until power cycled.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Embedded menu and default GRUB shipped on Fedora 7 i386 DVD ISO

How reproducible:
Completely. Happens every time the embedded menu is displayed, exactly the same
as described above. vmlinuz and initrd show lots of '.' while GRUB loads them,
the word Ready, and lockup.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Insert Fedora 7 i386 install DVD into bone stock Sony Vaio PCV-RS724G and
power on.
2. Wait for the GRUB graphical menu and choose Install, Install (text), or
Rescue option.
3. Watch it load vmlinuz and initrd, print "Ready." and hang.
  
Actual results:
System hangs after loading vmlinuz, initrd, and displaying the word "Ready."

Expected results:
GRUB hand control to kernel, kernel uncompress and begin boot.

Additional info:
I ran into this same mess with F7t4 and F7RC2. Sorry, but I did not enter bug
report for those because a) I didn't know if it was Fedora or something with
Sony's hardware and supplied BIOS and b) I had no workaround, and without that,
nothing particularly useful to enter other than "it no worky on only my system?"

However, I burned F7 install to "try again". First, I removed all additional
hardware, restored the disk to factory state using the Sony recover CDs, and
reset all BIOS options to default. Boot from Fedora DVD still hangs. Began
seriously monkeying with the TAB option to add everything I could think of after
the vmlinuz line, including internet workaround described for Sony notebooks. No
good. I tried all sorts of combinations of apci, pci, and other options. All of
them resulted in the same lock. I finally found that I could get out of the
menu. When the embedded menu displays, if I press ESCAPE key, I get dumped to
GRUB with a boot: prompt. I tried a raft of GRUB commands there, to no avail.

A workaround:
When the graphical menu displays, press ESCAPE and return to the GRUB boot
prompt. From the boot prompt, I used either the "linux", "linux rescue", or
"linux memtest86" command (sorry, can't remember exactly which now, it was
almost 2am by this time). From that boot: prompt, with a linux command, Fedora 7
booted normally, ran Anaconda, installed, and everything is great. I just had to
get out of that menu, enter a linux command by hand, and start the installer
from boot: rather than the graphical menu. After install, system rebooted fine
and has booted without problem since. The workaround was only needed to get it
to start the installer, not boot every time once installed.