>I've got an old 486 VLB board with 24megs of RAM I want to stick Linux on..
>I can't even get it to boot completly off of the install floppy though.
>After the initial menu I choose text mode install and sometime during
>Loading initrd.img it bombs out and says Boot Failed: please change disks
>and press a key to continue..  Pushing a key will get it to try and boot
>again but the same thing happens..  I tried it first with a boot disk from a
>RH6.1 CD then from a RH6.2 CD.  Same thing..  Any ideas?

It must be nothing short of aural kinetic telepathic cranial insertion. 
I've never seen a motherboard and ram accomplish all that.  Even with
linux stuck to it.

Seriously though, you may check that the bios has the floppy set to
1.44, all too often it's set for 720 on those speed-demons....  Other
than that, try a new floppy disk, drive, controller and then
motherboard, in that order.

* Blake

-- I feel funny... I am, ain't I?  *sigh*