GUI install proceeded normally on Ultra 2 machine until formatting partitions. It formatted all ext2fs partitions, then gave the message "formatting swap". It hung there for over an hour. ctl-alt-bkspc had no effect, ctl-alt-delete also had no effect. powered off and re- booted to cdrom, got to same point and hung. Booted a 3rd time and used the text installer. Install went fine, and during partition format, it never attempted to format the swap partition. Fdisk'd the swap partition to ensure it was flagged as "linux swap" and it was, RH6.1 is accessing the swap partition now that it is installed and running.
Unable to replicate in the test lab. Possibe that you labelled the mount point incorrectly and the system tried to format swap. The message which generally displays is "Making swap on <device>" so I am thinking that something weird happened.