steve_c

Does anyone think this might work? http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:qHmpCM-...device%22&hl=en

Thanks very much :)

Thanks for the reply and apologies as I now have 2 active threads :( I don't get to the point where I can choose a partition. I have tried the following: Using PM8 - created a 10GB Linux drive ext3 and a 500MB linux swap drive. Also tried with just empty space. The setup starts and I choose keyboard and also agree to the license, and the security options. Then I get a message saying: "I can;t read the partition table of device hde, it's too corrupt". It then tells me that it can go on and erase over bad partitions and in which case, all data will be lost - "error is unkown partition table on disk /dev/hde" Do you agree to lose all the partitions?" so I choose "No" -then there is disk activity for a few minutes and then I get another error message: "I can't read the partition table of device hdg and some of the above text and "error is bad magic number on disk hdg" do you agree to lose all the partitions?" I select no and there is more disk activity - I am then presented with a final error telling me that there is no room to install. So I'm pretty stumped - if I clicked yes to any of these messages I suppose I would lose my other partitions? Steve.

OK I'll give it another try and delte the ext3 partition from windows. brb ;)

Hi again - using partition magic, I created a 10GB linux drive, ext3 and that went fine - I then rebooted and still got the same instalation errors telling me that there was no room to install. Is there any way I can tell from within install that mandrake has seen my drives? I'm still unsure as to whether my promise raid controller was spotted and set up succesfully. I am still getting the error about there being a bad magic number on hdg. I clicked "no" as it warned me I would lose all data. I think that the hd was scanned as there was a lot of activity for a couple of minutes and then it ended with setup telling me that "I can't find any room to install" I also remember a message about the info was too corrupt for setup to understand on the hd. Any help is greatly appreciated - I'd like to get this install done today. Thanks! Steve.

Hi - when I right click and select convert, all I get is FAT or NTFS - Primary and logical are greyed out. I've got no other options - what is EXT3 anyway - as I said I'm fairly new at this. TIA! Steve.

Thanks for the info - I have partition magic - how do I convert the drive to ext3? It's FAT32 Logical drive at the moment. My C drive is logical NTFS and my games drive is primary for some strange reason. Ta.

thanks for the fast reply - I'm very new to this so not a lot of that made sense - how do I partition manually to format the mandrake drive before setup starts? Once I get that done I should be on my way. Thanks again.

Hi all - me again! :/ I've now burnt my iso and they boot fine so that;s the first problem out of the way - I think I'm now having RAID problems... I formatted a 10GB partition as FAT32 for use with Mandrake and rebooted. Setup started fine and took me through the language setup. Then there was an error about there being a bad magic number on hdg. I clicked "no" as it warned me I would lose all data. I think that the hd was scanned as there was a lot of activity for a couple of minutes and then it ended with setup telling me that "I can't find any room to install" I have an Asus P4B533-E motherboard with an onboard "Promise MBFastTrak Lite controller" seen here: http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/it...SLanguage=en-us (PDC20276 Drivers for Win 95/98/ME/2K/NT4.0/XP ) Now when setup was starting I'm sure I could see that it detected the drives - it certainly detected the controller as I see the device name briefly. So has anyone got any ideas? Thanks in advance guys. Steve.

Thanks guys - got the isos now - only thng is I can't figure out how to burn an iso without the .cue file using Nero 6 - any ideas?

lol yeah downloading now - nightmare really because I set today aside for doing it :(

lol ok thanks! :)

Thanks - downloaded that - so I have to download the isos again? Man I mucked that up big time :lol:

I can't remember now - they *were* isos - I realise that now - the only thing I overlooked is that winrar is associated with ISO files which I completely forgot and just took them to be archived files such as zip or rar so went ahead and unzipped them and delted what I thought to be rars or zips. So now I have 2 gigs of files which are pretty much useless I guess.... Unless anyone has any other ideas?

I've deleted the ISOs now - what a nightmare - is there not anything else I can do?

Hi - the 2nd CD doesn't boot either - how do I check the checksum? Sorry for being ignorant... :)

Yeah I can see all the files on the CD - if I insert it in the drive in Windows xp - it will boot and come up with the mandrake menu - I'll try and boot with CD2 then - thanks for the tip!

Hi all - eager to get started - downloaded a mandrake 10 official file - unzipped and I have Mandrakelinux10.0-Official-Download-CD1-3.md5 and 3 directoried - CD1, CD2 and CD3 - I tried just burning CD1 using NERO data CD and it won't boot - I can't see any ISO files anywhere - please don't tell me I have to download it all again!? Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance, Steve.

Right got you - only thing is - will Mandrake be able to read my mp3s and other data I have stored? TIA

I'll head that advice well. One more question - just using Partition magic - all my drives are NTFS - I understand Mandrake cannot use this - is that correct? I assume so. What about if I convert to FAT32 using PM - will I lose any performance at all or run into any problems that yoyu know of? I'm pretty much ready to go. Thanks, Steve.

Hi All thanks for your swift replys - I'll give it a try tomorrow night and will probably be back here to seek a bit of help! Thanks again! Steve.

Hi all - complete newbie here so bear with me - I've read the tutorial on installing mandrake and seem quite comfortable with what is outlined but let me explain the stage I'm at... I have got a 160GB Raid0 array running with 5 partitions: Windows: 10gb (3gb free) Files: 40gb Work: 40gb Games: 40gb Photos: 30gb Am I right in understanding that XP and Mandrake need to be on the same partition to dual boot? If so - would it be possible for me to use Partition magic to expand the windows partition? And if I can will there be any performance impact? I have formatted using FAT32 btw. Also I have a Asus P4B533 Motherboard with a Promise RAID controller on board - will I have problems with the install? I cannot see any Linux drivers on the Asus website. I'm very keen to get into this so any help would be appreciated. PS I have downloaded Mandrake 10 official. I connect to the internet using a Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem. Thanks in advance, Steve. *Edit* Oh and will I need a floppy drive? I do have one somewhere but only use it for the RAID drivers for Windows XP install.