Hi All, Sorry for the delay in closing this thread out and many thanks to everyone for their kind and helpful responses. I /did/ finally resolve this and am happily running 9.3 now. However, I don't understand the exact sequence of events or the precise cause of my difficulties. There were several contributing factors: - crappy IDE cables not able to support above UDMA33 although the host controller and drives are UDMA100. I don't know if the installer is sophisticated enough to recognize and adjust for potential problems in this area. - the host controller is reported during boot as "not 100% native mode" and is also causing barrier-based syncs to fail, which I understand is not good when you're running file systems like ext3 and Reiserfs. Also, it seems like the module used for this controller has problems handling adjacent ext3 and Reiserfs partitions on the same physical drive (see my closing notes) - I wasn't having any file system problems, so I didn't 'wipe' the 9.2 installation off the drive and verify the partitions before installing 9.3. As it turned, out the adjacent ext3 partition was corrupted /first/, leading to read/write/seek errors and retries, which I experienced as "frozen" windows. In fact, every program attached to the entire /drive/ was waiting for it to regain it's senses. That, I think, is how I ultimately corrupted an otherwise healthy Reiserfs file system: by repeatedly force-closing properly waiting programs. - I decided to change my partitioning scheme *after* the first failed install and (shiver) used my paid-for Partition Magic on that other OS to implement it instead of booting to rescue mode and using Linux tools. (I know... lazy....) Specifically, I used PM to delete '/' (Reiserfs) and '/home' (ext3) and divide the space differently. Then, during installation, I selected to format '/' as Reiserfs but only *mounted* the PM-created ext3 partition as '/home'. Maybe PM didn't prepare the ext3 partition correctly in the first place? - finally, towards the end of the next-to-last installation attempt, as SuSE was very busy building and writing configuration files, the power company shut off power to fix equipment damaged the previous night by a lightening strike (sigh). In my then stubbled-chin, weary-eyed and very cranky state, I threw caution to the wind and said "screw this!... delete everything on the %#@@!$#%#@ drive and give me Reiserfs all the way, baby!" Guess what? No more barrier-based sync failures being reported against the ext3 partition (it doesn't exist anymore), no more "frozen" windows with permanently lit HD indicators and 9.3 seems to be good to go. So, there you have it. If you think you can figure out from this mess exactly why the installation went as badly as it did, I'm open to theories. Meanwhile, it's on to other issues. And thanks again for all of your replies. Regards, - Carl