From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.4.1) Gecko/20020508 Netscape6/6.2.3 Description of problem: Made custom Boot and Root diskettes from the boot diskette HOW-TO. Booting from the boot diskette hangs with a cramfs error when uncompressing the kernel. System booted fine with identically configured diskettes made on a 7.2 system. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Create a custom kernel with all hardware drivers required to run the system configured into it. 2.Follow the instructions in 6.1-6.3 in (use lilo, or the direct method. Both produce the same result.) http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/x703.html 3. Try booting the system with the boot diskette. Actual Results: You get a cramfs error when the boot process tries uncompressing the kernel. Expected Results: The system should have booted from the boot diskette, then asked for the diskette with the root filesystem on it. Additional info: I have made boot and root diskettes many, many times on RH 7.2 systems and never had a problem. As a matter of fact, I got around this bug by making the diskettes for this RH 7.3 system on an existing RH 7.2 system.
Are you sure that the floppy you were using wasn't bad?
Absolutely positive. I must have tried 4 or 5 different diskettes and I went through the entire process from scratch 3 seperate times. I originally encountered this on a Compaq Proliant ML 350. I even had the floppy drive replaced since it was new and under warranty. Started from scratch and still the same problem. Compaq suggested trying it on a non-Compaq system. So I installed 7.3 on a clean, very generic clone, started from scratch and with the same result. At that point I stopped blaming the hardware and went back to what I knew worked. I formatted the drive on the clone system and installed 7.2. I started the diskettes completely from scratch and they worked the first time out. I then reconfigured the kernel from 7.2 to match the Compaq's hardware, made another set of disks and used those on the Compaq without problems. I hope that answers your question.
Red Hat apologizes that these issues have not been resolved yet. We do want to make sure that no important bugs slip through the cracks. Red Hat Linux 7.3 and Red Hat Linux 9 are no longer supported by Red Hat, Inc. They are maintained by the Fedora Legacy project (http://www.fedoralegacy.org/) for security updates only. If this is a security issue, please reassign to the 'Fedora Legacy' product in bugzilla. Please note that Legacy security update support for these products will stop on December 31st, 2006. If this is not a security issue, please check if this issue is still present in a current Fedora Core release. If so, please change the product and version to match, and check the box indicating that the requested information has been provided. If you are currently still running Red Hat Linux 7.3 or 9, please note that Fedora Legacy security update support for these products will stop on December 31st, 2006. You are strongly advised to upgrade to a current Fedora Core release or Red Hat Enterprise Linux or comparable. Some information on which option may be right for you is available at http://www.redhat.com/rhel/migrate/redhatlinux/. Any bug still open against Red Hat Linux 7.3 or 9 at the end of 2006 will be closed 'CANTFIX'. Again, if this bug still exists in a current release, or is a security issue, please change the product as necessary. We thank you for your help, and apologize again that we haven't handled these issues to this point.
Red Hat Linux is no longer supported by Red Hat, Inc. If you are still running Red Hat Linux, you are strongly advised to upgrade to a current Fedora Core release or Red Hat Enterprise Linux or comparable. Some information on which option may be right for you is available at http://www.redhat.com/rhel/migrate/redhatlinux/. Closing as CANTFIX.