How does 7.1 mount the FAT partition to /boot during installation ?

I have finally received a set of cd's for 7.1 (mar 9 build) but I am unable to get the installation to create and/or mount a FAT partition to /boot so that the system can actually boot after installation. I have tried reformatting the disk and letting the installation partition the disk (it only creates a linux and linux-swap partition) I tried installing with a 150 MB formatted FAT partition on the disk prior to installation and letting the installation create partitions in all cases there is either no FAT partition or the one I created prior to installation is empty How do I get this to work? D Levinthal