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Help Needed


Guest Morphine
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Guest Morphine

Hi, i am new to linux and got 3 free installation discs, i boot up from disc 1, the penguin comes up and i press f1 for other options and then hit enter, then the screen goes blank and the windows system reboots then the penguin screen comes up again, i've tried everything, for example not hitting f1 and just hitting enter i've tried typing linux and other commands and then hitting enter ive been in the bios and disabled usb legacy support etc but the same thing always happens the pc re-boots from the beginning, i posted a similar message to this on another forum but got no reply, can anyone help, i have a compaq presario desktop pc model no SR1100UK and the windows xp OS is partitioned into RP_D could this be the problem, any help would be really appreciated. ATB Mark

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Welcome aboard :)

 

Have you tried the following boot parameters?

 

linux noapic nolapic

 

Yes, the problems could be related to the partitioning. But first try the commands and unplug all your USB devices along the way.

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First, a big and warm welcome to MUB.

 

It seems to me like your cdroms are suspect, at least the first one anyway. It seems you are not even getting to the stage where partitions could be a problem or any hardware that might be incompatible. The fact of trying different choices at the beginning without getting any changes would support this.

 

Did you burn the disc as isos or did you unpack the isos before burning ??.

You MUST burn them as isos only.

 

Did you burn the discs at slowest possible speed which is strongly recommended ??.

 

If you can give us this info we will know where to go from there.

 

Cheers. John.

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Hah. This is the W H Smith edition I eventually gave up on and took back.

 

My experience was different to yours, though.

 

When that first screen comes up, just hit your "Enter" button, to start it off. (It worked for me).

 

Mandriva will partition during the install, so you don't need to create a partition beforehand. But make sure you've defragged your Winsows before you start, because it will partition the free space on your hard drive, and if you have odd stray bits of file, they may get wiped out!

 

The other thing to be sure of is that your hard drive is big enough. These days, 80GB seems to be stanbdard, though 40GB will be fine. If you have about 20GB free space beyond the Windows installation, you should be OK.

Edited by richfly
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Downloading is fine, if you have broadband (I don't, can't afford it), and if you know how to handle ISO's, or compile ftp server downloads (yes, I've seen both in my time!).

 

The other recommendation I will make here (& elsewhere!) is that, if you're completely new to Linux, hold off on buying a distro, and go instead for an excellent starter book, Test Driving Linux by David Brickner.

 

(If your 3 CD's still fail to install, take that Mandriva packet, your till receipt, your debit/credit card if you used that, and go get your money back! If it cost you £10, which mine did, then this book is the same price, and works better as a decent introduction to Linux!).

 

From Amazon.com (USA):

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...099939?v=glance

 

or Amazon.co.uk (UK)

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...3818782-0352637

Edited by richfly
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