Red Hat 7.2 install problem

[redhat install list mdsh com]

I have a Pentium 90 machine from circa 1995 which is perfect for my ADSL
IP tables firewall. It has had RedHat 7.1 on for a while but I want to
upgrade it to RedHat 7.2 as an easy way of getting EXT3 (its in a domestic
situation and there are occasional power outages which can be a bitch to
recover from).

I usually install from NFS, so I boot with the bootnet.img floppy and
select the appropriate settings for my NFS setup. There is some network
activity and I get the message "Running anaconda - please wait..." but
that is as far as the install gets. The computer is completely locked up
and a power cycle or reset is the only way to 'recover'.

I have also tried installing from CD-ROM and that gives exactly the same
results.

I know the NFS store and ISO images are OK because I've upgraded other
machines from them. Its just this one old Pentium 90 which won't play
ball.

The box has all SCSI disks which are correctly terminated. The box has, in
the past, been up for a year and a half running Oracle 805 and is
currently up running RH7.1, so I know it is working OK, I just can't get
RH7.2 installer to run properly.

I looked at the output displayed on the other virtual terminals F3 and F4
during the "Running anaconda - please wait..." stage of a text mode
install.

The important thing seems to be on F3 where the last message is "Looking 
for USB mouse" which is followed by the machine locking up. The thing is,
there is no USB at all on this ancient machine.

I guess now I need to know how to stop it looking for USB mouses. I would
be grateful if anyone can offer a clue as to how I can cure this problem.

Any suggestions?


A few notes on the box:

# lspci -vt
-[00]-+-00.0  Intel Corporation 430FX - 82437FX TSC [Triton I]
      +-07.0  Intel Corporation 82371FB PIIX ISA [Triton I]
      +-07.1  Intel Corporation 82371FB PIIX IDE [Triton I]
      +-0a.0-[01]--+-04.0  Intel Corporation 82557 [Ethernet Pro 100]
      |            \-05.0  Intel Corporation 82557 [Ethernet Pro 100]
      +-0b.0  Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA 2064W [Millennium]
      \-0c.0  Adaptec AHA-294x / AIC-7871

# cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 5
model           : 2
model name      : Pentium 75 - 200
stepping        : 5
cpu MHz         : 89.815
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : yes
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8
bogomips        : 178.99

# cat /proc/meminfo 
        total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
Mem:  80277504 78213120  2064384        0 29892608 18710528
Swap: 134193152    81920 134111232
MemTotal:        78396 kB
MemFree:          2016 kB
MemShared:           0 kB
Buffers:         29192 kB
Cached:          18272 kB
Active:          46308 kB
Inact_dirty:       108 kB
Inact_clean:      1048 kB
Inact_target:      112 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:        78396 kB
LowFree:          2016 kB
SwapTotal:      131048 kB
SwapFree:       130968 kB

# mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext2 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
/dev/sdb1 on /mnt/cww type ext2 (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
automount(pid647) on /misc type autofs
(rw,fd=5,pgrp=647,minproto=2,maxproto=3)

# df
Filesystem           1k-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1               888952    546224    297572  65% /
/dev/sdb1             48078504  44430776   1205448  98% /mnt/cww