Mandrake 10 hdd format question

[mrdeeye]

I have recently acquired a 5GB hard drive from an old pc that finally bit the dust and installed it into my current pc. When i looked at it in My Computer it says that it has 4.95GB free space. Also, my floppy drive doesnt work anymore...so my question is...do i need a floppy to install Mandrake 10 onto the primary slave drive? Another thing...it is currently listed as my "F:\" drive. Will the Mandrake 10 install ask where to install at, so i can specify the "F" drive? One last thing...how will i access Linux if it is installed on another drive..will i have to change the Boot Sequence everytime? Thanks again. Sorry If this isnt the most clear and precise post.

[ZeratulsAvenger]

For Mandrake it will probably come up with a graphical selector that allows you to choose which HD you want to use... It might be labled something like hdb(partitions are then labeled hdb1, hdb2, etc..) since it is the 2nd hd you have. It won't be seen as the F drive in Linux. You dont need a floppy... Mandrake should be able to do all the partitioning and installing from the CD. Which ever linux distro you choose should give you an option to install LILO or GRUB as a bootloader... which will then list your OS's(XP and Mandrake I assume in this case) and you can select whichever OS you want to boot to. You can make the default either Windows or Mandrake through the editing of some file if you aren't prompted to make such a choice in the installation. Install LILO or Grub to the MBR.

Hope all that made sense... kinda can't complete a thought at the moment so sorry for choppy sentences and stuff.

[mrdeeye]

thanks..that answered my question perfectly.

[mrdeeye]

alright....i was able to get everything installed alright, but when i rebooted to go back to XP to make sure i could still do that...i was left with a black screen and a little cursor in the top left hand corner that just kept blinking. I was able to go back to the Bootloader and i selected to boot Windows, but nothing happened. Any ideas on what to do?

Luckily Mandrake picked up my LAN connection with no problems so I could post on here...or else id be pulling my hair out for sure.

[ZeratulsAvenger]

You could restore the MBR with a floppy... Here. That will destroy you Linux install, but you get Windows back. I have had that happen, but I reinstall Windows a lot, so it wasn't much of a problem for me. I just reinstalled Windows and I was set I don't really know the cause of that sadly... never had much of a reason to.

Ohh...

The better option is to.... boot with the XP cd and do a command propt rescue and run fixboot and fixmbr

seems like an easier way to make Windows bootable.

Looks like you can also try and turn on LBA and not auto for the harddisk mode... whatever that might mean

Seems like it's a problem that not really many seem to have any concrete fix for sadly The LBA idea worked for a couple people though, so that might be worth a shot first. Hope ya sort it out...

[mrdeeye]

thats the thing though...my floppy is a goner...so am i gonna have to get another one? Or would i be able to do a clean install of XP with my CD onto the main harddisk

I was able to find this error when Linux was loading


Mounting local filesystem
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1 or too many mounted filesystems

now i am not exactly sure what that means but i thought it might help some of you more experienced people out. /dev/hda1 is my main hard disk with XP loaded onto it. When i try to load windows from LiLo I get this

GRUB_

with the underscore just blinking and blinking away with nothing happening. Thanks again. I'll see if i can find a floppy drive lying around or maybe a friend that has one. And see if i can jsut reset the MBR.

-deeye

[mrdeeye]

oops too many clicks

[mrdeeye]

oops too many clicks

[mrdeeye]

oopps too many clicks

[ZeratulsAvenger]

Umm... you can do it from the XP CD it turns out as said in my last post, so no need for a floppy drive.

boot with the XP cd and do a command propt rescue and run fixboot and fixmbr

I would try turning on LBA(instead of Auto) for your main harddisk from the BIOS first since that seems to have made Windows start to work again for at least some people. Better then Ruining the linux install.

That error as far as I know just means that your kernel doesnt support NTFS or something like that, making it unable to automatically mount your Windows partition... That only is relevant in Linux though.