rh9 instaltion problem (bad sectors?)

I'm trying to install rh9 on a system to use as a file server but when i get to the install part the installer says that "there was an error transferring the install image to the hdd you are probably out of disk space." I have spend serveral hours troubleshooting this. Here is what i have found but i am still baffeled.
Hardware:
cpu: 1gHz AMD athlon slot 1
mb: asus K7V-T VIA KX133 chipset
ram: 256MB generic PC133
hdd: 4.3gig seagate medalist
20gig seagate barracuda
60gig maxtor
cdrom: NEC 32x
vid card: riva tnt2

The plan was to install RH9 to the 4.3 as hda, mount the 20gig as /home and the 60gig as /storage. I set RH9 to check all the partitions for bad sectors and it finds bad sectors on hda2 regardless of what pysical drive I use as hda. I tested each one individually and get the same results. I also tested each drive in other systems to see if RH9 would install and i get the same problem. So I have deduced that RH9 has some problem with my hard drives, ide cables or ide controller. It's a brand new board. RH7.3 installs to the above mentioned system flawlessly. I changed out ide cables thinking maybe I had a bad cable but even with new cables I still get the same problem. I'm not a coplete newbie but I'm not a linux guru either. I'm hoping one of you gurus out there can help me. If you have any questions about what I've tried or my hardware configuration then let me know. At this point I'll be hapy to try about anything to get this to work.
Thank You,
typhoon

does no one reply in this forum? not trying to be rude maybe no one has an answer but i was just curious. even if you just have a suggestion of something to try that would be helpful

How big is the install image you are trying to transfer? Are you doing a network install? Have you tried installing a from a CD-ROM?

it isn't a network install although i would like to learn how to do that. it's from an iso that i downloaded from redhat and burnt to cds. the drive i'm installing to is a 4.3gig drive: 100MB /boot, 512MB swap and the rest /. i'm not installing all the packages just 2gig worth. is that too much? i wouldnt' think so unless it trasnfers the whole install image to the drive and then starts uncompressing it or something on that same drive and a 2 gig install ends up using 3.5gig or something... in that case that could be the problem. but that doesn't explain why it won't even install to just the 20gig or just the 60gig. i tried those too individually. thanks for the ideas though.

So you get the same problem when you try to install Redhat to the larger hard drives?

Also is this the exact error message you get word for word?

"there was an error transferring the install image to the hdd you are probably out of disk space"

yeah doesn't matter which drive i use to install to even the 60gig and that is the message word for word as best i can remember. that's the general idea anyway. it makes no other suggestions besides possibly being out of disk space.

If you could get the exact error message word for word it would help me greatly into helping solve your problem.

ok this is the error message word for word:
"An error occured transfering the install image to your hard drive. You are probably out of disk space."
the other error i get is if i tell it to check the drives for bad sectors before installing. not sure word for word on that error message. i would have to try to install again. but it goes something like this:
"bad sectors found on hda2. you should not use this device."
also note that i get this error regardless of what drive i have in there as hda. even single drives see above for hardware i'm using.
on thing that was suggested to me was the possibility that it was becasue rh9 uses udma by default and rh7.3 uses pio. does that make sense and how would i check that.
thanks

Did you do a checksum on your iso image ? You may have got a bad download or burn ,it does happen occasionally. By you saying that 7.3 goes 9 should go for sure as it tends to support more hardware if anything.(and its not a ghetto box you are trying to install on by any means.) Many people really like 7.3 , over the newer ones. Its not as pretty but its more down to earth . And well 7.3 has a special place in my heart being my first nix install.
edit- and well if you are willing to try anything, FreeBSD is a bit to learn but it will serve like no other !!

I have just discovered this tip to check my install CD. Thanks lumpypore, I had been stuck on this for more than a week. An error occured transfering the install image to your hard drive. You are probably out of disk space. Or your install CD has a scratch on it.

Thanks

Al Swann

why install rh9? redhat stopped supporting it like 2 years ago, lol
now they're supporting the fedora project and the current stable version is fedora core 5.

but if you really WANT rh9 :shrug: to each his own. however, it sounds like a bad install disk. do you know someone with rh9 (i'm guessing no...lol)? or you could try downloading that specific disk again and giving that a try. did you ever check the hash's on your iso's? or run through the disk check?

I have RH9 here somewhere. Who knows, it might be worth something some day.

why would it be worth something when its freely available?

For historical reasons, like having a Comodore 64