Mandriva install error /mnt/boot not found

[dfgrbac]

I downloaded the 3 CD iso images for Mandriva LE 2005 and burned them on CD. When I reboot the computer with the first CD, it starts okay. Everything goes fine until it is time to reformat the disk and install Mandriva. Then it abruptly gets a fatal error saying: /mnt/boot no such file or directory. I tried this several times using the default partitioning and even playing with the partitions a little sometimes formatting the /boot partition and sometimes not. I keep getting the same error. I did not really want to change the partition setup since I already have a linux installed. I just wanted to delete that linux and install Mandriva.

 

I am not a newby to linux - been using it for over a decade.

 

Although I am a retired computer analyst and Unix system admin, It's been over 10 years and I know I am losing some of my touch.

 

Can anyone give me an idea how to get around this install error?

 

Don

[Aomighty]

See what happens if you reburn the CDs at the lowest speed possible. Bad burns sometimes happen, and it's happened to me before.

[dfgrbac]

Tried it - same error.

 

I am thinking the iso file has a glitch.

[Aomighty]

Where did you download it from? If you download from the mandriva site, I know it should work, as I've done that and had them work fine.

[dfgrbac]

Problem solved! But you're not going to believe the solution.

I downloaded another copy of the iso from a different site, but the file compared exactly with the original iso I got. - using diff. I burned it to a CD anyway, and got the same error again.

 

Now here is the solution - which really is not a solution when you come right down to it.

 

Instead of reading the install CD in the CD-RW drive, I placed it in the DVD drive just out of frustration. This worked!

 

I'd sure like to know why though. The only thing I can conceive of is that the DVD drive has a finer resolution and read the disk correctly where the CD drive could not - even though the Cd drive actually wrote the disk.

 

Go figure!

 

Anyway, I am sending this message from Mandriva - Praise God!

 

Don

[pmpatrick]

It's probably the cd-r media. Some optical drives have trouble reading the media from certain manufacturers and drive read errors seem to be more of a problem during an install. I've experienced the same thing myself; i.e. problems installing from one drive that disappear when I switch to the second drive. And during normal operation, I never see any problem from either drive.

[AussieJohn]

I think it has more to do with where the two optical drives are located. Normally Mandriva tends to look for the first of the optical drives when installing rpms. But you can start the install from any optical drive so that when it wants to reference back to the first disc during the install, or when it comes to requiring the next cdrom, it looks for it in the first optical drive and of course naturally you keep inserting the next disc in the same drive you started the install from.

 

Am I correct in thinking that your dvd drive is earlier in the ide chain than your burner ???. Mine are dvd....hdb and Burner ....hdd as an example. On the ocassions I have forgotten, and started installing from my burner ..at hdd I encountered something similar.

 

Cheers. John.

[dfgrbac]

Yes, my DVD drive is the first referenced. But if there is no disk in it, why should that matter?

 

Anyway, I get your point. Computers are not as refined as we would like to think. We are still primative in so many ways - not just computing.

 

Also, changing disks was not a problem. I couldn't get past the first disk install procedures. The worst part of this was that it worked through the format partitions procedure and then died. This made the computer unusable until another linux was installed. I have two other linux distributions and they both work in the CD drive. Therefore I didn't expect that was the problem.

 

Don