David Batson

If Adam's suggestion does not work or work well, try kppp as Lex recommends. That is what I use with my HSDPA/EDGE/GPRS card. Tried WVDial and I don't remember if I ever got it to work. I much prefer kppp.

Try booting up a Live CD and see if they work then. This would rule out a hardware problem.

Are you using a USB keyboard? If so, perhaps an energy saving feature for your USB ports is disabling it. This feature could be set in the BIOS or possibly Mandriva (not sure). The screen could be black because of the display energy saving feature kicking in after a period of inactivity. Check your display settings and KPowerSave. One other thing. If this is a desktop PC, make sure all your cards are fully seated. I have had problems with cards unseating themselves after a period of time.

As a guess, you probably need to turn on the wireless switch.

My guess is that you have a failing hard drive. You will probably need to replace it. You can try running TestDisk and see what it comes up with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk

I found this rather lengthy thread. I only looked through part of it. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=304217 The following post from page 11 of the thread above documents how to do this in Ubuntu. I imagine the process could be followed in Mandriva by subsituting a couple of commands. http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=514...p;postcount=107

A little searching with Google brought up this post. Any help? http://www.willamowius.de/linux-inspiron-1150.html EDIT: I just realized this isn't your card but still the post might have benefit. I'll look a little more.

Maybe you do not have permission to open those files from the server. Similar to the problem (solved) I was having in the following thread. http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=91855

I highly recommend kppp over wvdial. You can find it using Software Installer. Note that you should change the leftmost button in Software Installer from "Packages with GUI" to "All", otherwise you will not be able to find much of the software available directly from Mandriva.

Either driver should work, but try adding this: /^fglrx/ to the /etc/urpmi/skip.list file. MdkOnline might be trying to update your driver without your knowledge. Whenever you change from the Mandriva version of the ATI driver to ATI's version and vice-versa, you should change your graphics mode to: Other > VESA driver (generic), reboot, then uninstall the previous driver first before installing the new one. You uninstall Mandriva's version of the ATI driver by uninstalling all the fglrx software in Software Installer. You uninstall ATI's version of the ATI driver by doing the following as root (su): 1. Launch the Terminal Application/Window and navigate to the /usr/share/ati folder. 2. With super user permissions, enter the command "sh ./fglrx-uninstall.sh"

This is weird. I am using Opera 9.51, but the same thing happens in Firefox 2.x. If I click on the link, I get a box saying "Remote Linking Forbidden". I discovered though that I can copy the link, then open a new tab, then paste the link in the address bar, then hit Enter and the image loads. Oddly, when I first did this in Opera I got a thumbnail image, but on refresh it filled the page. In Firefox I never got a thumbnail, it just filled the page.

I notice those mirrors have been offline for a few days at least - maybe even a week or longer. I have switched my update repositories back to French "coffee" now that they are up and running again.

Some of the newer DVD's are dual-layer and I don't think all the DVD readers can handle that. I also have had a problem with some brand new DVD's I tried to play in Windows XP with my 2005 era notebook computer. I remember one of the titles I had trouble with was a Disney movie.

I don't know much about it, but in Windows there is an Overlay mode (with ATI cards - not sure about others) that if not enabled will not let you see video content. Searching briefly it appears that some of the latest ATI drivers may support this. There is also something else called Framebuffer. I have seen this problem in Windows with my ATI card, and it had me stumped for a bit. I am clueless about using this feature in Linux though. See the following for a little about this: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_TV-Out I don't know if this is the OP's problem, but it could be related.

Glad to be of service. :)

Totem from Backports is causing this problem. Update broke Firefox...

Well, generally you have a VPN connection between your laptop and a server. This is secure because of VPN. That's server's connection to the internet is generally wired although it could be wireless. If that server is your home PC, then it would be as secure as your home PC is.

I don't know if the BIOS would give you any options for the Power Button, but look at Configure KPowersave > General Settings > Button Events and chose nothing for power button. This works on my laptop anyway. However even if the Power Button button event is set to do nothing, if you hold the Power Button down long enough (5 -10 seconds) you get a hard shutdown.

If you can use it, VPN creates secure connections through remote computers. You would have to log in via VPN to another computer that you have access to. Then all the surfing would go through that other computer. This can work with a laptop connected via VPN over the internet to a home PC or a work computer. I have not used VPN myself. Only read a little about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vpn#Security_and_Mobility

You didn't say if this is a laptop or desktop PC. Some laptops and perhaps some desktop PC's have a mute button on the keyboard. This hasn't been pressed has it? Do you get any beep sounds at boot up? Try booting up a Live CD. Do you have sound then? Just trying to narrow down that the problem is with your installation and not a hardware problem.

Glad you got it sorted. :) Yeah, a hard drive should not fail in just three weeks. I didn't realize your system was so new. I have lost several hard drives over the years, so I don't trust them all that much. I even carry a spare hard drive with me when I am out of town, with a complete working OS installed on it in case my primary hard drive fails.

If it was me, I would try to backup everything with a good backup program onto DVD's or a spare hard drive. If possible test the backups on another hard drive. This might be a good time to buy a second hard drive and restore your backups onto it. I have a feeling that imaging backup software would not be the best choice in this case. Here is one possible solution: http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_backuppc Here is another one: http://www.backupcentral.com/components/co..._Metal_Recovery You can search online for what is available. Once you have your backups made, the best thing to do IMO would be to use a hard disk diagnostic utility from the hard drive manufacturer and see what it reports. The manufacturers also make low level formatting utilities that will remove all partition information. After using one of these low level formatting utilities, you can then repartition and reformat you hard drive, and restore your backups if you wish. Since your partition table got corrupted, it is possible that your hard drive is beginning to fail anyway. So you should try to backup what you have before continueing with repair attempts.

I see that others have reported the same problem with MCC. It is also reported that you can launch MCC by going to Konsole as su and running mcc. I have not tried 2009 alpha yet. Don't currently have the bandwidth for a download (I am on a cellular connection).

Try going to Configure Your Computer > Security, and set the security level to Standard. Next go to set up firewall and uncheck all the boxes on the first page. Close the pages. Can you connect now?

Some USB modems are recognized as a storage device instead of a modem. I don't know if this is true in your case, but if it is, there is a post at forum.mandriva.com that has a link to a fix.