Guest iptik Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 When I insert the mandrake disc and reboot the computer, the system boots up and it goes to the mandrake install screen. Of course I option to install and it starts booting up, it gets right to the end, the screen goes black, and the computer restarts and repeats this over and over. I've upgraded the BIOS to see if that would do any good, no such luck. Heres my system info if its of any use: Compaq Presario SR1103WM refurbished. Windows XP Home Edition 512mb pc2700 SDRAM 40 GB hard drive (NTFS) with a 4 gig FAT32 partition PNY Verto GeForce FX 5200 PCI card Intel Celeron D 2.5 ghz This is driving me nuts and i really want Linux on this pc so help would be greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 You don't give any details of the partitions you set up ????? for Linux. Can't help you until you give us more details of what you have done. It seems you may be trying to install it into the windows partitions some how. Cheers. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iptik Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 No, the partition is a recovery partition (they didnt supply a recovery disc so they just took away some hard drive space instead) As for details, there are none to give because i have done nothing because i cant get past the "Press F1 for more options" and "press enter to install" it reboots if i try to do anything after that screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 May be a longshot... but this sounds like my mom's machine... which gave me a similiar problem. It too was a Compaq SR 1100 something. I think the problem was with the lack of support for the intregated onboard video... but I see you have an addon video card which I did not have. Have you tried disabling the onboard video in the BIOS ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iptik Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 the BIOS wont let me disable the onboard memory, it will let me set the onboard video memory to 512kb and change the main video device between onboard, AGP, and PCI, of course i changed those settings when i got the card. but i googled my problem and while nothing came up for mandrake i found a similar problem on a suse support site and it said something like the kernel was too large for the BIOS or something like that, and linked to a boot disc file you could download to fix the problem, is there anything like that for mandrake and could it fix my problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 when you get to the point of F1, try to hit f1 for more options, and choose alt1 to start the installer with an alternative kernel. Maybe this works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 4, 2005 Report Share Posted April 4, 2005 You can't use the recovery partition without reformatting the entire drive. Make room on the windows partition with windows utilities. Then, create a new partition and don't format it. Install linux into that partition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iptik Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 ok, i tried the alternate kernel to no avail, is there a file i can put on a floppy that might help me get through the installation? my BIOS settings are identical to my Gateway and its installation is fine, so its this or im going to be looking for a new mobo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pita_146 Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 I get the same thing when I try and install using the boot floppy, however if I use the boot floppy to try and install and hit F1 to select more options and use the text method it will load vmlinuz, and start loading cdrom.rdz then it goes completely black and just sits there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 Some time in the past I had problems like this on a laptop that had one of those blasted recovery partitions. I simply got rid of the partition and reinstalled Windows and Linux. If you don't have a lot of data you culd loose I'd recommend getting rid of that partition. You can use Partition Magic also to set up a separate Windows partitionn and move your data there first. As a rule when I get a Win system the first thing I do is create a new partition for data so I can always re-install without loss of data. So if its possible repartition with Partition Magic, can the recovery partition, re-install Windows, then do Linux.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pita_146 Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 I currently have my windows partition, An "extra" partition that I use to store some extra files and such and the partition I want to put Linux in...Should I totally Reinstall windows and get rid of the extra partition? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iptik Posted April 5, 2005 Report Share Posted April 5, 2005 i cant afford to buy partition software (it all seems to be pay-only, demos arent functional) and unless i can find a crack...well im not sure if that sort of discussion is permitted here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted April 6, 2005 Report Share Posted April 6, 2005 you can use mdk to partition your drive and then go back to install Win, round about but I think it will work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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