Guest Polardude Posted October 31, 2002 Report Share Posted October 31, 2002 Hi..... I tried to install Mandrake 9.0 on my laptop..... and it failed. I was finished with installing the operating system during set-up. But, right before I could move on to make my root password.... The system informed me that it couldn't find some of the critical files needed to finish installing. So, I clicked ok. Then, it went back to the screen to choose the options of linux.... I went through this cycle, many, many, many times, trying different options, even the very basic config..... Same error. I gave up and wanted to quit.......but I couldn't quit; there was no exit button or anything. So, I proceeded to do the worst of all....turned off the laptop. I knew there would be big problems. Anyway, it turns out that I can't reinstall it..... It would just give me an error. I tried reloading ms-dos..to erase it through fdisk....didn't work. Same through the rescue mode on the disk.....didn't work. Doing both, it returned the same error. So, what do I do??????? Also, I still want to install Mandrake 9, but, can u tell me what am I missing or what options should I pick to avoid the same error.... I AM A LINUX NEWBIE..... Good Sumcheck...... (Downloaded in .ISO format from one of the offical mirrors found at mandrake.com) Cd burned fine..... (Burned at 2x using Nero, Memorex CD-R) Laptop Specs..... (I'm an student on a budget, forgive me..... :wink: ) IBM Thinkpad 380ED PII : 166 MHZ RAM: 48 MB HD: 2 GB ANY HELP GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted October 31, 2002 Report Share Posted October 31, 2002 If you know the manufacturer of the hard drive, go to its website and download the appropriate hard drive utility for your drive. With this utility you can run diagnostics on the hard drive and do a low level format which zero fills every sector of your hard drive. This will totally clean the drive and leave it in the same condition as a new drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Polardude Posted October 31, 2002 Report Share Posted October 31, 2002 I don't know the manufacturer of the hard drive... but are there any general ms-dos utility that would write zeros to any hard drive????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted October 31, 2002 Report Share Posted October 31, 2002 I tried reloading ms-dos..to erase it through fdisk. Did you mean you tried to install or did you try boot from a DOS disk? I think any "boot" disk (whether DOS or windows) should be able to fire up the computer enough to get you to dos prompt where you could then run a:fdisk and clean out your partitions and reformat. If you have a set of DOS install disks, disk one should be bootable. If not, try here: http://dos.li5.org/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 1, 2002 Report Share Posted November 1, 2002 If you have your cmos set up to print the boot info on the screen, the hard drive manufaturer will be printed out on the first screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jglen490 Posted November 1, 2002 Report Share Posted November 1, 2002 You can't erase or re-allocate Linux partitions with MS-DOS fdisk, it just doesn't recognize such partitions. You CAN re-allocate Linux partitions with the Linux fdisk. What you can do is fdisk delete your existing Linux partitions (effectively erasing Linux), then redo the whole hard drive into one big vfat or FAT32, empty, partition. Then re-install Mandrake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Polardude Posted November 2, 2002 Report Share Posted November 2, 2002 Thanks for all the comments about reformatting my hard drive..... Finally, I was able to format my hard drive and reinstall Mandrake 9..... But, the same error appears..... This time, I watched it closely and found out that files were missing from the cd, as I previously mentioned. But, all the files that were missing seemed to come from system libaries required to boot linux. So, could the cd be defective from the burning???? I used Nero 5.5.9.0 to burn the ISO image at 2x. If the cd is defective, then please recommend some cd burning software that would burn ISO accurately under Windows XP........ Also, this comes to mind..... What does CD-2 and CD-3 include???? THANKS!!! :) (I am currently downloading my third and last copy of Mandrake CD-1 ISO. I wanted to make sure my other ISOs are not defective; even though using the MD5 sumcheck, it proved to be a successful download.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted November 2, 2002 Report Share Posted November 2, 2002 Alternatively you could do an install from your hard disk. You can get at the instructions from this site: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/fdoc.php3 . You can select the manual you need from the drop down box. In this case you want the first one. It will also be in the ISO and can be extracted with a program liike winimage 5.x. Sorry I don't have the URL for it, but Google should come to your rescue. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 2, 2002 Report Share Posted November 2, 2002 Note: the kernel sources are on the third cd. If you try to rebuild anything, like Nvidia drivers, it won't work without the sources installed. The 2nd cd has some good stuff. You should get all three. But the first cd should give you a functional system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Polardude Posted November 3, 2002 Report Share Posted November 3, 2002 Using the just recent downloaded ISO, I burned it on my 3RD cd using a different program than Nero. When I attempted my, let's see, um..... 7th or 8th time trying to install Mandrake 9....All seemed to go well... It never gave me any error messages unlike before.... Finally, it was finished and onto the post-install config.....then, BOOM! ERROR.....(about how the rpms can't be found on the cd....) So, I am gonna copy the cd to the hd to see if it helps with the installation..... (Thx, Counterspy) Any other suggestions???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Polardude Posted November 4, 2002 Report Share Posted November 4, 2002 Is there a possibility of installing it onto my laptop across the lan, using the ISO image that I downloaded expanded on my main desktop??? The part that I am not sure about is that how do u set up the config to install??? I have a Win XP setup on my main desktop connected directly using a cat-5 crossover..... Thx....Sorry about all the problems.... I really want to get linux loaded on my laptop.... :D (The CD doesn't seem to work because of missing RPMS....But every cd checked out with the MD5 sumcheck. Also, I couldn't copy it onto the hd using DOS....TOO TIME CONSUMING!!!!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 5, 2002 Report Share Posted November 5, 2002 If you want to install off your hard drive, here is the link for that: http://www.mandrakeuser.org/docs/install/ihdinst.html. You have to make a boot floppy using the hd image file on CD 1 as described in the link. The image directory of CD1 also has a network image on it so I imagine you could create a boot floppy per the above using this image and install from a network drive. I'm sure it can be done but I can't find any documentation on it. You seem to have thoroughly checked out your CDs. If they are good, the only point of error would seem to be read errors from your CD drive on your laptop. I had a similar problem when I recently tried to install on a laptop that had a CD drive that connected through the pcmcia slot. Wound up doing an install from the hard drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Polardude Posted November 5, 2002 Report Share Posted November 5, 2002 If they are good, the only point of error would seem to be read errors from your CD drive on your laptop. I had a similar problem when I recently tried to install on a laptop that had a CD drive that connected through the pcmcia slot. Wound up doing an install from the hard drive. Well, I think I might have found my source of errors.....the cd drive. Thanks, pmpatrick.... I have a question for u. How would I copy the cd onto the hd on my laptop if I have no operating system besides Dos??? How did u install it on yours???? Here's another thought to ponder... how can I transfer files from my windows desktop to my laptop's hd using dos or any other os with a direct connection using a crossover??? I was stupid enough to take off Windows '98. I was betting on the stablity and raves about the Drakx installer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 7, 2002 Report Share Posted November 7, 2002 I still had windows 98 on my laptop so copying the CDs to disk wasn't a problem. I'm really not familiar with DOS so I can't help you there. However, I did find something that might shed some further light on the problem if your CD drive is connected via a pcmcia card like mine was. Apparently, if this is the case, you should make a boot floppy using pcmcia.img found in the Images directory of CD1. See : http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/doc/82/en...l-bootdisk.html Wish I'd seen that when I was doing my install!! If you do connect your CD drive this way, it's worth a shot. Perhaps the drivers in pcmcia.img will eliminate the read errors. Also, the Readme file in the Images directory of CD1 has some limited info on installing over a network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 7, 2002 Report Share Posted November 7, 2002 If all you have is dos, you will need to have the cdrom drivers installed in order to access your cdrom. Or, if you use an old fashioned win98 boot disk, it will boot your system with some good generic drivers. Once booted with your cd working, the command to copy the cd would be: xcopy d:*.* c: /T /E /K (copy [source] [destination]) The switches recreate the file struture with attributes, and includes directories. In the example, d is your drive letter for your cdrom, and c is your drive letter for your hard drive. The win98 boot disk creates a ram drive, or a virtual drive, which may shove the cdrom drive letter back to e, or one letter back than what windows id's it as without booting from the boot disk. Other useful commands: md=make directory dir=lists the contents of a directory Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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