Smoothwall boot problems

[Wibble]

I'm intending to use Smoothwall v1.0 as a router. Installed it to the machine, installation goes fine. First reboot is OK, then it carries on with the setup. When the setup is completed, it reboots again, and then, as it boots from the hard drive, the screen is filled with 01, scrolling across the entire screen, and just going on and on.
Booted from a Win 98 floppy. FDISK'ed the drive, formatted it, SYS'ed the drive, rebooted, same problem. Used the /MBR switch for FDISK, rebooted, it booted straight to the DOS prompt. Hurrah I thought, it's fixed. 5 error-free reboots seem to confirm this.
Re-installation of Smoothwall, at the same point, the same problem. The screen filled with 01's.

Now, my thoughts are that there is a problem with the MBR. But how can I fix that? Would making a boot floppy in Linux, then running the Linux version of FDISK /MBR work?

[netx2]

I would be curious as to whether the smoothwall media is corrupt. Since you tried several fixes for the hardware, try downloanding and burning a new copy of Smoothie. I have been running 2.0 beta 2 for a while, anxiously awaiting beta 4 (which should be out very soon). Even the beta is very stable.

[Wibble]

I think it might be the media too, but that is now irrelavent. I was chatting to a couple of blokes at work (I'm so glad I work in geeky/techy environment) and one of them suggested that I try Mandrake Network Firewall (MNF). It's a bit bigger than Smoothwall (about 300 Mb), but one of the guys recommended it. He had been having trouble with Smoothwall and tried this.

30 mins with it, and I'm up and running. Need to check the other PC on the LAN, but it's in the kids room, and they are in bed, so I won't disturb them. But, so far, it is running lovely. Obviously, I need to tweak it somewhat, but I'm happy with it so far.

Thanks for replying to my post, but I *think* I'm sorted now.

[netx2]

Are you on broadband or dial-up? The only reason I ask is that I am on dial-up and had some issues with MNF.

[Wibble]

Broadband. 512 kbps.