Compaq Presario 1245

["Robert Aldridge" <RALDRIDG@gulf-states.com>]

Hello list...

I'm attempting to install Debian (Stable) on a Compaq Presario 1245. 
The CD-ROM isn't working properly, so I'm installing via floppies.  I
followed the instructions using the Rescue, Root, 4 driver disks, and 20
base-install disks and successfully got it installed to the 3.2 GB
harddrive.  But, I can't get it to boot.  I have the HD (hda)
partitioned into 3 partitions, /dev/hda1 is to be mounted on /boot (~8
MB), /dev/hda3 (~3.1 GB) is to be mounted on /, and 128 MB at the end of
the drive is configured as Swap.  I got through the entire install and
when it asked if I want to make the system bootable, I chose the
alternate (Make a boot floppy).  After the boot floppy is created, I
chose the "Make the system bootable" menu item and wrote LILO to the
MBR.  After rebooting, the red LILO screen comes up with 2 options,
"Linux" and "Linux (hda1)."  The arrow keys don't appear to do anything.
 If I let LILO timeout and try to boot the default entry, it just
recycles and starts counting down from 15 again.

If I boot with the rescue disk and type "rescue root=/dev/hda3", the
system appears to be coming up normally, but hangs.  The last two lines
on the screen are:

VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 152k freed

Then it just sits there.  Nothing else happens.

When I try booting from the boot floppy, it says "Loading
linux.bin........." for a very long time (hours) and never boots up.

Any ideas?

On a side note, I think the CD-ROM drive is bad, but I'm wondering if
it may be IRQ conflicts or something.  Please help if you can.

Thanks,

Robert