Can't Install OS?

I've got a rather odd thing going on:

As I've mentioned in another thread, I've been getting some outdated equipment donations from various places and trying to build some fairly functional boxes using old OS's, mainly for the purposes of learning the old school stuff (by the time I got into computers XP was getting well established, so I never learned 9.x). I'm also trying to set one up for Linux...Heh, right now, I'm trying to get whatever will work! :)

So anyway, I got one previously dead box up and running after scrounging up some parts (though it's really low on memory, I'm short on sticks). I started to install Redhat, but it froze during installation. So, I then tried installing WinNT from floppies...it failed to boot from floppy. Then I tried installing Win95...failed to boot from CD...it seems it won't read either. However, when I tried Redhat again, it read the CD fine, and as I write this, it's finally installing.

So the question is, why will it only install Redhat? Why is it ignoring both the Win95 install CD and the WinNT install floppies? Any ideas?

I would check to see if another computer can read the floppy and cd. and I would also check to see if there are any scratches on the cd or dust.

Maybe it's a hardware problem with your floppy drive? That's what it sound's like to me. Follow the above suggestion's and check back, if not then try installing it on another box and see if it'll work.

Yeah, it all works on other boxes...

As spyder mentioned probably a hardware problem, if you don't want to buy another floppy drive you can take it off your current computer and place it on that one (because who uses the floppy drive anymore? :p)