Mandrake 9.2 – 3477 days old

[curious]

Hi,
I have two questions regarding the above.
1) I have d/loaded the 9.2 distro last night and burnt the o/s on 3 discs. But in my excitement I have made a goof up some where and though the CD are d/loaded as ISO files,the icon shows an I/E icon. as you will notice from the image. How can I change the icon so that the prog.can open in correct entity?

2) The Second question is as follows.
My comp which has a single 40gig hard drive has been partitioned as follows.
C:drive 10 gigs loaded with Win98SE Fat 32
D:drive 15 gigs loaded with Win XP Ntfs
E:drive 8 gigs Empty Fat 32 (intending to d/load mandrake 0.2)
F:drive 6 gigs Empty Fat 32

Is it possible to d/load Mandrake on drive E and how can I ensure that Mandrake does NOT slide into drives C & D partitions, and am still able to exercise the option of choosing multi booting?

Thanks for your help
CURIOUS

[Grogan]

You will need to reburn the CDs. You need to create CD from image, not simply burn the .iso file to a CD. You won't be able to do this with the built in Windows XP CD writing, you will need to use Easy CD Creator or Nero.

As for your partitions, I think I recall telling you this before. Delete E and F and claim the unpartitioned space during Mandrake setup.

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/demo...ke9.0/Install/

[curious]

Hi Mike,
Thanks for your prompt reply.I did format and leave partitions E & F for Linux last time but Mandrake still found its way to lodge partly into Partition C.
I had to format the total hard drive wiping clean everything. This is a fresh attempt and I wish to keep mistakes to the minimum.Hence the questions above.
So, what is a foolproof method an "expert" like myself can utilize to make sure Mandrake stays within its allocated realestate?
TIA
Curious

[Grogan]

You shouldn't have bothered to create an E and F partition at all when you partitioned for Windows. You want to delete E: and F: (use fdisk or disk management in Windows XP) and have that space unallocated. That is the best way to do this.

Then, during Mandrake setup, you must choose the Custom Partitioning option.

It will look somewhat like this:

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/demo...ges/reco5.php3

This is just showing an example, don't use this to resize existing Windows partitions. This is why I say to go into this with unallocated (unpartitioned) space.

OK, when you do this, you will see your unpartitioned space as a blank area on /dev/hda. You click on that white area, and create partitions.

http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/demo...ges/reco7.php3

After clicking to select the unpartitioned space, if you're unsure of what you are doing, you can click the "auto allocate" button (as shown in the above demo)

[Grogan]

And by the way, when you go to install the boot loader (LILO or GRUB) it gets installed to the master boot record of the hard disk. (/dev/hda)

[curious]

I tried to follow your instructios and after the installation, I was asked to remove the cd and boot the system but it appears that I have hit a snag. I read an error :

LILO--Keytable Read/checksum error

and the screen is immobile at this stage.Now how can I get out of this situation ?
Please Help!!
TIA
curious

[Grogan]

Is there by chance, an overlay (e.g. EZBios) installed? (like if you partitioned the drive with tools from the hard disk vendor). You likely won't get a bootloader to work if that's the case.

Is the drive hooked up to any sort of external ATA controller (e.g. Promise, Highpoint ATA 100)

When prompted during the installation, did you create the boot floppy? You might be able to start the system with that, as the kernel and bootloader are on the floppy disk. It will mount your root filesystem from the hard disk.

[curious]

Hi Mike,
Yes I did use Maxtor's partitioning software (MAXBLAST)
I have again formatted the hard drive into 3 partitions--
C:Fat32 11gigs Win 98se
D:Ntfs 15gigs XP Pro
E:Fat32 14 gigs Empty
Hence I am again ready to get into the foray.
The drive is not connected to any external controller.
I was not able to create a boot floppy as I do not recall being prompted,but I may have overlooked.
So what is your recommendation now, how shall I proceed?
TIA
curious

[BobGuy]

Yes I did use Maxtor's partitioning software (MAXBLAST)

Basically you have to get rid of that EzBIOS overlay that maxblast installed, by uninstalling it.

The whole purpose of using maxblast EzBIOS so brain dead windows can address the complete hard disk drive.

Any linux distro will not have a problem reading your hard drive atleast up to the old 137 gig limit. There should be a patch (might even be in the new kernels now) that will go even higher if you have a hdd in the 200 gig range.

None the less I expect that you will have problems until EzBIOS has been uninstalled.

So far 9.2 is very buggy from what I'm reading about other peoples experiences with it, only seasoned users seem to be able to repair the broken parts. New users havent got a snow ball chance in hell of fixing this mess.

[curious]

Hi BobGuy,
When I reinstalled both Win98se & Xp, EzBios screen did not reappear so I am assuming that it is no longer there. To boot into XP is very smooth but takes a bit longer to boot into 98se.
What do you recommend should I do, to ensure that EzBios is definitely not there, or, is uninstalled, short of formatting the hard drive with dos?
I tell you this Linux bit is quite a learning expirience and I am thankful that it is my curiosity that keeps me going at it again and again.
TIA
curious

[Grogan]

You may not be using EZBios. Here's something you can do to verify that the system really does support the drive.

Boot with a Windows 98 SE startup disk, and type fdisk /status. It should display your partitions correctly. (Linux partitions should show as Non DOS)

If there's an overlay in use, it will NOT be on the win98 startup disk.

OK, now... for some reason, the LILO boot loader didn't install correctly, or wasn't able to work. We don't really know why... I suggested EZBios because that's the exact error message that can occur. It could be something to do with how maxblast partitions too.

It could also be just a broken installation of LILO. Mandrake 9.2 itself is quite broken, and it seems to vary on different systems from the things we've been reading.

[BobGuy]

I tell you this Linux bit is quite a learning expirience and I am thankful that it is my curiosity that keeps me going at it again and again. TIA curious

Well you certainly have the right attitude.

The original 9.2 that was available using bittorent has been updated because it was so buggy, there is atleast 250 megs of updates to get it to where it should have been to begin with.

So to Mandrakes credit they with held the public .iso untill they updated them, which took 2 weeks. But the fact remains that they released 9.2 before it was ready.

"November 13th, 2003 - Mandrake 9.2 public ISO now available - It's now possible to download Mandrake 9.2 ISO images on our public FTP mirrors."

If you have high speed access I would wait a week maybe two, as the ftp servers may be overloaded, and try the newer 9.2 release.

Myself I am going to wait for some reviews to be posted on the internet and see if the vast majority of the bugs have been taken care of. There is not much point in getting the new .isos if they are still buggy.

Every OS has some bugs in it that gets worked out, we expect that, but the first 9.2 must now top the list from what I'm reading.

For now lets see if you have EZbios installed.

What are your computer specks? mobo cpu ram etc.

[curious]

Hi Bobguy,
>What are your computer specs?

Asus A7V266e M/Board/AMD XP1800/512mb ddr rams/40gig Hard drive .
Dual boot Win98se and XP.
98se has become slightly corrupted and booting to 98 goes in a loop a couple of times while the floppy runs all over like a mad dog looking for a hydrant to pee at and then settles down ;despite though, I have set the bios to boot with CD ROM in the order of booting.
However, I shall abide by your advise and wait for a couple of weeks before tackling 9.2 again.
Thank you both
curious

Edit:Would you guys have any suggestion for restoring the 98se boot to its regular beat without going in to formatting the hard drive again and reinstalling the windows o/systems?
TIA
curious

[Walden]

Well i don't think i installed 9.2 correctly. For starters, i don't have all of my packages installed, which i told it to, and when i try to install them using the mandrake package installer it doesn't work. So i downloaded Firebird, i can't open my Home window!!! What the hell is going on? i'm starting no to like mandrake.

Not to mention, that the update service doesn't work, tell me i need to check somthing enabled in the package manager which i do, then it craps out.

[Walden]

so i tried to reinstall 9.2, no dice, i get past the BIOS screen, i get past the "how do you want to install... where it was press F1 for other, and enter for normal"..

Using VGA16 mode
Uncompressing Linux...

crc error

-- System Halted

what the hell?

I can boot into Mandrake normaly, with out any problems.

[curious]

Attention Moderator
I think WALDEN's messages have been posted in the wrong post.
curious

[Grogan]

Heheh, yes, this thread is being recycled isn't it.

Speaking of posting in the wrong place, you should probably post a detailed account of your Windows 98 problem, in the Win9x forum

I'd help you with it right here, but I don't know what to tell you based on what you've given.

For the floppy drive access, try clearing your recent documents under taskbar and start menu options. Also ensure that there are no shortcuts on the desktop or anywhere in your start menu, pointing to something on drive a:

A .pif file from a DOS program that was run from drive a: can also cause this.

You can also try disabling the floppy seek, in Window 98 System Properties. On the Performance tab, click the Filesystems button. On the Floppy tab, uncheck "Search for new floppy drives" or whatever it says in there.

There are also some viruses/worms that can cause floppy seeking.

[curious]

sorry please ignore this post am trying to figure out how to post jpg file
curious