Guest Purple Library Guy Posted March 16, 2008 Report Share Posted March 16, 2008 Hi. I'm not new to Linux or to Mandriva, but I'm no coder, just a user. So, OK, new computer, blank hard drive, was installing Mandriva 2008 Free and due to some problems with that I ended up having changed a setting and installing in text mode, which seemed to be working. But I got greedy, I guess. I'd started the install in text mode so I would be able to see the mysterious messages scrolling down the screen as it started booting up to begin the install, hoping to get hints what had been going wrong. But the setting I changed seemed to have worked, so since in text mode I was finding the partitioning process annoying I decided to quit and start over in graphical mode, with the setting changed as before so it would work. I backed out, making sure to not agree to actually do those partitions. Problem is, now when I go to reboot and start over, the computer gives me the "BIOS is happening" screen and then hangs--doesn't even try to boot anything up. I can fiddle with the BIOS settings, tell it what devices it should be looking to boot with first, and all that, but none of it seems to have any impact. When it finishes doing the BIOS thing, it gives me a blank screen with what looks like a cursor but doesn't seem to respond to any kind of keyboard input. Doesn't matter if there's a CD in the drive or not, either (much less what CD), where before if you didn't put in anything bootable it ended with a little text message saying there was nothing to boot and you should put in something bootable and hit enter. That's gone now. Anybody have any notions what could have gotten overwritten and how I can put it back? Because for the moment, I would seem to have a brick with a BIOS and I'm rather frustrated about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 16, 2008 Report Share Posted March 16, 2008 Sounds like because a partition exists on the hard disk, it's trying to boot this, and that the CD is not set to boot before the hard disk. This is how it happened to me when I had similar problems. Welcome to the board Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Purple Library Guy Posted March 16, 2008 Report Share Posted March 16, 2008 Well, I don't think that can be it. First, I was pretty definite that those partitions did not get written to the hard disk, 'cause it was all "I'm gonna write the partitions to the hard disk now--confirm/cancel (or similar yes/no kind of stuff)" and I was all like "cancel", kinda thing. Second, I fiddled with the BIOS just in case and changed the boot order to make the CD the first boot medium ahead of the hard drive, and it didn't change things a bit. Third, it just doesn't seem to be acting like a computer that's trying to boot. It goes through the BIOS screen and just . . . stops. :sad: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 16, 2008 Report Share Posted March 16, 2008 Are you sure there are no partitions on the disk? Anyway, this is how it looked to me when I had empty partitions on the disk. If not, then I think there is something wrong with your computer so if you can't get it booting, suggest you reset the BIOS settings or revert the changes you made and see if it works. If not, take it back to where you got it from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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