Aloha, I have installed and re-install Suse 9.1 a number of times while attempting to learn Linux. Suddenly my installation halts at the first reboot (and all subsequent boots after the installation is complete) with the message: 'Control-D is the only method of reboot' 'hit <enter> to login' Above this, in the details, I can see: can not find Keymap for us, Exit Loading Keymap failed /etc/init.d/kbd: line 129: /usr/sbin/hwinfo: no such file or directory Line 129 of /ecs/init.d/kbd refers to numlock. After hitting <enter> I tried dir /usr/sbin/hwinfo # no such file or directory dir /usr -> # no such file or directory mount command: hda2 /boot ...... hda5 / ...... df -a shows two empty directory other than . & .. . My layout is hda is a EIDE master; hda1 hpfs 1.00gb hpfs is a os/2, ecs file system hda6 hpfs 3.80gb hda7 hpfs 5.00gb sda is a usb externally encased ide drive (20gb) containing: sdb5 swap .826gb sdb6 /tmp 1.00gb sdb7 /home 7.20gb sdb8 /opt 4.00gb sdb9 /usr 5.86gb I assumed the /boot should be inside of the first 8gb of hda, because usb drivers for the external drive would not be loaded until after the the boot; therefore my placement of /boot and /root on the ide drive. I can boot from the installation cd, or from install floppy disks to the 'installed system' without a problem, if I use the KDE desktop. What am I doing wrong??? Any help will be greatly appreciated!!! Please forgive me if this is a duplicate posting but I could find evidence of it being received by the list. Bill*** ----------------------