difficulties re-installing mandriva on laptop

[Guest davidbun]

Hello,

I am a new user of Linux and I have hard time to install Mandriva 2005.

Linux was previously installed on the laptop on a hard drive which is not operational anymore. I have bought a new hard drive.

My problems are: the bios (Phoenix) does not allow me to boot on the DVD-ROM; I do not have a floppy disk.

When I turn on the computer, I see the screen "Linux limited edition 2005".

 

I have tried to start the computer on the DVD and plug the hard drive just after the computer has booted on the DVD: in theses conditions, i can choose on lilo linux, linux non fb, failsafe, and windows.

When i choose failsafe, i received the following message: " kernel panic - not syncing: no init found. Try passing init = option to kernel".

 

I can go to the install screen after having plug the hard drive just after having boot the computer. But inn this case, linux asks me "which drive/ide driver should i try": i have tried all the driver and have received each time an error message.

 

 

What can I do? Thank you for your help (really needed)

[DragonMage]

Can you tell us the exact model and specification of your laptop? I find it strange for a laptop that is made after the late 90s that doesn't allow booting from DVD or CD-ROM (depending on the laptop configuration).

[crazyspongebob]

How big is the new hard drive? It could be unsupported hard drive by the laptop. I had an Athlon mobo which does not support hard drives larger than 80gig or larger, and a Thinkpad 166 mhz which does not support 10gig or larger.

 

I wonder if your laptop supports hotplug. You might damage the drive when you hotplug it. That means you plug in the drive while the system is on. Have you checked whether the drive is set as master or slave? For some old laptop DVD drive, it can be slow to boot up.

 

 

J.T.