dies during boot

[linux virgin]

can anyone please help?

 

I installed mandrake 9.2 off the three cds rebooted the pc as instructed pc starts up and attempts to boot into linux (I can't select anything else as it won't let me use my usb keyboard at this point) it then starts going through all its checks for about a minute the monitor then flashes on and off then off and stays off.

 

This happens on the radeon graphics card and when I switch back to the on board graphics.

 

I would be grateful of any help you can give me as I am a total novice with linux. and would love to be able to put my windows in the bin.

[fuzzylizard]

Which radeon card are you running? And which motherboard and which chipset for the onboard video?

 

When the computer dies try hitting ctrl-alt-F1 (I think it is F1) and see if you can see anything. If so, write it down and post it in this thread. The above command changes the terminal to one that Mandrake uses for boot messages. Also, try pressing escape as it boots and see what is printed on the screen.

 

When you got to the end of the setup, what did the configuration screen say regarding your monitor and graphics card?

[bvc]

Yes, which MoBo/chipset? Did you turn off Plug-N-Play in the bios? Could be the reason the usb isn't working. Have to get around that to beable to do anything. Of course you could always change boot/kernel parameters the hard way;

-boot to CD1

-press F1 at the splash screen

-type

rescue

and hit Enter

 

-choose 'Mount your partitions under /mnt' and return to the rescue menu

-choose 'Go to Console'

-type

chroot /mnt

and hit Enter

 

-then do;

vi /etc/lilo.conf

scroll with the arrow keys and to edit (insert) press i

 

look for (label="linux") or similar

image=/boot/vmlinuz
       label="linux"
       root=/dev/hda?
       initrd=/boot/initrd.img
       append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=ht splash=silent"
       vga=788
       read-only

change the append line to

append="devfs=mount hdd=ide-scsi acpi=off noapic splash=quiet"

and vga to

vga=normal

 

yes that's noapic not noacpi.

 

Now you have to save the file so do;

 

Esc

:

wq

and hit Enter

 

That's Escape>colon>Write the file (save) and Quit>Enter

 

reboot and let it go to linux and see if it boots. If no and you need to go to windows do the above and edit the line in lilo.conf

default="linux"

to, what? windows? (Whatever the label= value is for windows)

default="windows"

 

Then you don't have to delete linux/lilo to get to windows til hopefully something can be figured out. Oh, and welcome to the board!

[linux virgin]

Took a while to get back I have got a ATI radeon 9000 series graphics card it is a pci type, and a mitac 17inch tft monitor, I have pnp enabled in the bios. I have had problems with windows on the same hard drive so ended up re-ghosting the disk with no linux on it but don't worry it is in a caddy and I have another disk to put linux on which should make things a bit simpler I think. The question is what should I do at the end of the setup when it asks about graphics card or should I download some drivers first.

 

Thanks for your help so far please, please keep assisting me.

[arthurking]

Do you have a tv card or webcam connected, when you boot the pc?

[bvc]

turn off plugNplay

 

I d/k anything about ati except there have been probs with certain ones. If all else fails, choosing the vesa driver should get you to gui til you get the proper driver going, but I could be wrong.

[iphitus]

A friend of mine has a wierd monitor, it would turn off at times like this. All he needed to do was turn it off and on again and it worked.