mpcrsc Posted July 8, 2007 Report Share Posted July 8, 2007 i have an hp a1209n desktop pc. it runs windows xp home, it has 2gb ram and a radeon 9250 videocard (if anymore info is needed please post). i've been trying all day today with no avail to get the spring 2007.1 live cd to boot, but the installation always freezes. i've tried as well to boot with other options (noapic, etc.) still with no success. to my surprise, the live cd booted with absolutely no problem on the first run on my laptop. it runs vista home premium, 3gb ram, ati xpress 1100 mobo integrated video. i really would like to install mandriva on my desktop though. any help? thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpcrsc Posted July 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2007 ok, so all's not well. it seems that something wrong happened with the laptop install--i don't know what. i got all the way to where i was asked to reboot and when it rebooted it hung up. no i keep getting a grub error and can't boot into windows. i even tried my windows recovery disc to no avail. need help bad! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonEberger Posted July 9, 2007 Report Share Posted July 9, 2007 hi mpcrsc, sorry you're having such a difficult time. first, did you backup or was this pretty much a new laptop with little data or settings? i learned this lesson the 'oh-so-hard' way. i've never used the MS Vista tools. when you say that you tried the 'recovery tools but to no avail', what happened? what did MS's tools say? i always only used the MS tools to clean my MBR. when you boot the machine does anything happen? do you get to the bootloader? does a linux boot start and then freeze? if so, what is the last message on teh screen? there may just be a kernel option that you use or there maybe a 'failsafe' kernel that you can boot into. can you boot to the Linux CD that you made? you may be able to enter a recovery mode and edit the bootloader. shoot, you've got nothing to lose concerning your linux install. you may even consider reinstalling. can you enter the laptop BIOS? if not, there may be other problems. a real step-by-step type of information as to what happens could be very helpful. good luck and i hope this gives you some ideas. jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted July 9, 2007 Report Share Posted July 9, 2007 I think the Live CD can be booted in rescue mode. Then you can choose the option to recover the Windows boot loader to boot Windows again. What options did you exactly try booting the CD, you mentioned apic, but not exactly what and which combinations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpcrsc Posted July 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 well, when i tried to boot into windows the grub hung up and gave me an error code (i can't remember though). as i stated in the initial post, this was an attempt to install mandriva on a usb hdd. when i used my recovery disc to reset the system back to factory condition, the grub remained and still hung up preventing me from booting into windows. luckily, the laptop hdd automatically partitions the disc (in windows) which gives me c: and d: drives, whereas c: is windows system drive and d: is an empty partition. my last resort was to install mandriva directly on the hdd and forego my dreams of having mandriva run from an external usb hdd. my first try was no success and i think that i made the mistake when the last step of the installation process (choosing grub or lilo and choosing the boot drive) asked me what drive was going to be the boot drive. i changed the intial setting which still kept me from booting into windows. the second attempt, and i must add my successful attempt, i kept everything at their default settings and everything has been fine since--well almost. what is irking me now is not actually an installation problem but a hardware configuration problem (getting the bcmwl5.sys file to lib/firmware--i don't know how to do it yet and until i do, i can't use the wifi on my laptop--so let me search the forums ) anyway, except for that issue, all is fine in mandriva-land. for all who at least attempted to offer any help, thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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