Initializing hardware

[Robt C Parrish Sr.]

Does anyone know what the difference is between how version 11 initializes 
hardware and how version 12 does it?  Several years ago I played around with 
Redhat linux for awhile.  I've been trying to installing Fedora onto a 
second harddrive on a system with XP on the first drive.  Here is my 
dilemma.

I downloaded version 11 and burnt them to CD.  When I try to install it gets 
to where it initializes hardware and hangs up/freezes.  I searched thru the 
forum and the only thing I found was that it points to hardware 
compatibility.  I checked and all my hardware seems compatible.  I saw on 
the forum where version 12 was released and decided to try that.  The 
install goes well and I get past the disk partitioning to installing the 
bootloader.  When I try to go to the nest step I get "Unable to read group 
information from repositories.  This is a problem with the generation of 
your installation."  When I checked the forum for this message it talked 
about a problem with the CDs burning.  I checked according to the 
instructions and the CDs checked out ok.

If I can figure out why version 11 hangs on initializing hardware I can 
install that version.  If I can figure out what version 12 halts after the 
bootloader I can install that version.  I am really interested in getting 
Fedora installed.