Hi all,

any idea what a message like this means, this is just when the kernel is loaded from floppy, uncompresses and the below message comes repeated in screenfull.

Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000

the machine is a 486 with 40MB ram, 4.3GB HDD. (dos/windows too are unable to start up apart from the initial messages.) just curious typically which part of hardware could have gone wrong?

4.3GB?? afaik these machines cant detect a harddisk > 2gb. Check the bios setup. Insert maximum wait states to slow down ram access. Replace the ram if you can find some of those ancient pieces. Or try a floppy distro. since these use very little ram it might just work.

rgds jtd