Install Problems HDD Bad? Bad Partitions?

19 Jan 2005

      Greetings,

I'm having the following issue when attempting an install of SLES 9 on a 
Dell Optiplex 170 Celeron PC:

crc error
VFS: Cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block(8,1) Please 
append a correct "root=" boot option Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount 
root fs on unknown-block(8,1)

I'm wondering if my HDD is bad, or perhaps my old Fedora Core install on 
the disk is  messing me up.  What would be an easy way to wipe the HDD?  
I do not have a floppy drive on it.

I've tried a different ISO and different media.

Thanks in advance..

Regards,
Seth