RH 9 doesn't accept 2nd CD during install

From: Jas Cluff (jascluff_at_nospamplease.cruzio.com)
Date: 01/30/04 

Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:43:48 -0800

Hi Folks -

        I'm a newbie w/ an installation problem, and of course on-line
        installation support is unavailable to me* until I'm installed.
        I'm in dire straits, and I'm counting on you folks to pull me up.

        I'm installing from RH 9.0 CDs. I've gotten past setup and stuff,
        packages are installing, and now I'm prompted for the 2nd CD.
        After feeding it in ( and yes, I removed the 1st one before putting
        the 2nd one in** ;^) ) and hitting return (running text installation
        due to insufficient RAM) I'm told "That's not the correct Red Hat Linux
        CDROM". OK.

        The media seems fine. By using the shell interface on the 2nd virtual
        screen I find that the CD has been mounted successfully. In my limited
        poking around I've found that there's a file called .discinfo on each of
        the installation CDs which seems to identify the CD. The contents of
        these files are essentially the same for the 3 CDs, except that on line
        four the first CD has a '1', the 2nd a '2', and the 3rd a '3'. There's
        one other difference which may be the problem: the first line is a
        10-digit number, a dot, and a six digit number. These numbers match
        on CD #2 and CD #3, but they don't match the numbers on CD #1. I'm
        reasoning that the installation procedure is using this number to make
        sure mismatched media versions don't cause a fubar installation, and
        that someone at RH uprev'd only the first distribution CD w/out
        remembering that its changed id stamp would kill the installation unless
        the other two were uprev'd too. Or vice-versa...

        Can anyone confirm my theory? Can anyone offer a solution that doesn't
        involve burning a new CD (I don't have a burner) or installing over the
        net (I've only a dial-up account)? I bought this retail, and the store
        doesn't accept returned software.

        Thanks...

ciao - jas

* You may have noticed that I'm on-line enough to have posted this plea? And
  yet RH installation support is unavailable to me because:

  - I'm running UW2 on another machine [I'm an unemployed UW engineer], but
    I've been unable to find a compatible browser newer than Netscape 3.04,
    which is incompatible w/ current redhat.com security schemes.

  - Phone support is beyond my strained budget.

** Stupid joke, but in my early days working Unix phone support we actually had
   a caller who had _not_ removed the first [5-1/4"] floppy before inserting the
   2nd one, thus generating the call. Lesson: make no assumptions!