mandrake 8.1 boot problem
 

Hello,

I had mandrake 8.1 up and running fine since a year. This morning I used Gimp and it frose my computer so I reseted it. Since then mandrake doesn't want to boot anymore. It goes until it switches to the X mode (just before the login panel). When it gets there my monitor fickers like it's going on sleep and waking up all the time.

I tried to use the mandrake disk to rescue my installation but when I get to the rescue mode I dont't know what to do. I don't know the commands, typing help fills more than my screen with the liste of commands (how do you tell the help command to fill only on screen at the time. I tried to pipe the output to more but there is no more command?) and I got no documentation to help me.

Can anybody give me a idea of what to do?

Thanks!:scratch:

Emergency Recovery section of the Mandrake Users Site

You need to re-configure your x server

XFdrake

# Mandrake links
Mandrake home page
Mandrake Users website
Easy urpmi config for Mandrake
urpmi mini-HOWTO
Easy software management: Red Carpet
Maximum RPM
rpmfind
You didn't install the developmental packages? As root, command:
urpmi gcc
An Introduction to the Midnight Commander. You can install it by commanding:
urpmi mc
Midnight Commander home page

the problem has changed
 

Thanks for the answer. It helped ... I think. Here's what I did.

Before the flickering of the monitor mentioned on my first post, linux complained about /dev/hda8 being uncorrectly unmounted.
I used fsck for the linux files system (I don't remember the name) and to check that partition. It told me I was doing something dangerous but I did it anyways. After that, when I typed "fdisk -l /dev/hda" I saw the /dev/hda8 partion which was not the case before.

So now linux boots but only in console mode. I typed XFdrake, I tried a resolution test, it didn't work complaining of "can't read lock file /tmp/.xf.lock" (I can't guarantee there are no typo here). Anyways, after that it asks me if it can switch the x session by default when booting and I answered yes. So now when I boot linux, I see the console mode again with "/etc/issue -> cannot execute binary file" writen on the login name.

Can anybody help me? Should I reinstall something instead of trying to repair it? And can anybody tell me why I have to loose all that time and energy juste because Gimp froze my computer and I reseted it?

Thanks in advance for any help.