Thankyou. I successfully loaded in text mode.
Then I installed with the bootloader going to sda6 the root partition. Copied the boot info to the menu.1st of my booting distro as I always do but on selecting Mandriva I get an Error 2: File system or Folder error I think it is called.
Here is my menu.ist info:
title Mandriva 2009 32 bit (sda6)
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=Mandriva_2009_32_bit_(sda6) root=UUID=0839d419-034e-4975-8fcd-11a87537e14c resume=UUID=a0277cd5-8eb1-41c7-b3b2-9802da939097
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img
Edit: I found in searching some problem with older GRUBs so I tried to update grub in my boot sector but it seemed the latest available.
Then with reluctance allowed Mandriva to overwrite the MBR and this got me past ERROR 2 but still didn't load the xserver...fiddled about with ctrl-alt-f1 but couldn't startx. Checked xorg.config which seemed OK.
Gave up, reinstalled my original MBR and reinstalled Mandriva for the fourth time but back to ERROR 2 having now spent three days on this and no desktop.
I have Mandriva Powerpack on it's way by mail but I suspect the same thing is going to happen.
So if there are any suggestions out there...please help.