I've read a lot of threads and articles about this, but I was hoping to get advice specific to my setup.

Compaq Presario 5BW 127
Intel Celeron 600MHz
319.0 MB memory (256 + 64)
Master hdd: 250 GB (usable space is more like 230 GB)
Slave hdd: 15 GB (usable space is more like 13 GB)

The bigger drive is newer and I switched them around because I thought the smaller drive was less reliable.

I recently installed Ubuntu to the entire Master drive, but there was a system error so I installed Mandriva in its place. Then I decided I still wanted a dual boot system, so I installed Windows ME to the first 127 GB, installed Mandriva to the last 100 GB (where it wouldn't boot, giving me Error 18), then installed Mandriva to the slave drive, where it's now a fully functional dual boot system. I still don't like Mandriva, though, because the screen resolution won't work in 1024x768 (this may be because the distro says "i586" and I need "i386" or "i486" (?).

I want to use some other distros that can get dual booting working as well as Mandriva 2007 Spring One did.
1) the Fedora Core 6 live CD asked a lot of questions when it was booting up. Would it still do it if it were installed on the hdd?
2) Did Ubuntu act up because I installed it on a drive that was too big? Should I retry on the slave drive?
3) Debian?
4) Something else? (though not Knoppix because I want it installed on the hard disk drive, not openSUSE because of the three installation CDs, and not PCLinuxOS which I love but it messes with my MBR in a bad way)

I'd like to keep Windows ME on 127 GB of the master drive, and either
1) one Linux distro on the slave drive - preferably one that can access the last 100 GB of the master drive, or
2) one Linux distro on the slave drive and a second distro on the last 100 GB of the master drive.
Is this possible, or is my computer too old? I'm afraid to mess with a working system. I may mess with it anyway, but I want to ask for advice here before I do.

I don't even remember if Windows ME can support partitions that high (127 GB). It sounds like feeding an 20yr old mongrel caviar.

You might want to put ME on a smaller partition, and install programs and data on a different partition. The fat filesystem will be more space efficient if the partition size is smaller.

You should be able to use 1024x768 in Mandriva. You need to tweak your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Not being able to access this area probably has more to do with your computers controller or BIOS then the distribution. You could have a separate /boot partition closer to the beginning of the drive, or located on the second drive instead. If it isn't just booting where this area of the drive can't be reached, you could consider purchasing a drive controller card. They are not expensive (~ $15-$20).

If you are going to install more than one linux distro, you could share the boot partition. The Mandriva kernel will have "mdk" in its name so there shouldn't be a conflict. You only want to update Lilo or Grub using the same distro however, and hand edit the config file. Otherwise you will end up with dueling distro's overwriting each others lilo.conf/menu.lst and MBR. An alternative is to write the boot loader to the root partition, and then chainload the second Linux distro.

Was the smaller drive having problems, or getting closer to the end of its life? Generally smaller drives (e.g. 40GB) are more reliable than larger ones. The error correction and bad block marking is a constant activity on the very large drives.


I think the best thing you can do for your system is install more memory if that is possible.

Thanks for the info.

The screen resolution is worth a whole new thread, so I'll ask somewhere else.

Originally the 15 GB drive was split into two partitions, and errors got so bad that I formatted it maybe once a year. Then I got a 40 GB drive and kept up the formatting until the drive crashed, and finally got a 250 GB drive. I realized Linux could read the whole drive, which is why I've been trying to learn it. For all I know, the unreliability of the old drive could have more to do with having Windows on it than it being old.

I looked up memory earlier, but I'm not sure how much money I'm prepared to spend on that old computer while I've got a second computer beside it that works. I'll keep the memory and drive controller in mind.

I could use some more help. I now have Ubuntu installed on the first third of the disk, and Mandriva installed on the last half. I edited Ubuntu's menu.lst file and booted into Mandriva, but it says "Error 15: File not found."

Mandriva's /boot is on /dev/hda10
/ is on /dev/hda11
swap is on /dev/hda12

I tried (hd0,9) for the kernel below, same error.

From Ubuntu's menu.lst:
title Mandriva 2007 Spring One
kernel (hd0,10)/boot/vmlinuz
BOOT_IMAGE=Mandriva 2007 Spring One root=/dev/hda11
resume=/dev/hda12 splash=silent
initrd (hd0,10)/boot/initrd.img


I'm not sure if it helps, but I'll post the results of the df command. I don't understand it because it's not in MB.

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 4784712 278552 4263108 7% /
varrun 159976 100 159876 1% /var/run
varlock 159976 0 159976 0% /var/lock
procbususb 159976 144 159832 1% /proc/bus/usb
udev 159976 144 159832 1% /dev
devshm 159976 0 159976 0% /dev/shm
lrm 159976 33788 126188 22% /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-generic/volatile
/dev/sda1 117105 22670 88389 21% /boot
/dev/sda9 38448748 181008 36314616 1% /home
/dev/sda5 58575648 32 58575616 1% /media/sda5
/dev/sdb1 14652032 1280440 13371592 9% /media/sdb1
/dev/sda8 9614116 1722448 7403296 19% /usr
/dev/sda7 2887108 198560 2541888 8% /var

Am I supposed to do something other than edit menu.lst to make this work?

Editing menu.lst should be enough. I have this suspicion that the real problem is your entry for Mandriva; I remember that Mandriva (just like PCLinuxOS, Sabayon and a few others) use a somewhat different GRUB syntax than most distributions.
The proper kernel line should include such things as "real_root=/dev/XXX", "/linuxrc=..." and so on. I forgot the particulars so you may have to search google to find out the right form that the kernel line should take.

Thanks. I booted up with the PCLinuxOS CD, found out what Mandriva's menu.lst looked like, and copied it to Ubuntu's menu.lst. Now it works. Here I changed the titles from 'linux' to "Mandriva 2007 Spring One" and 'failsafe' to "Mandriva failsafe."

If it's of any use to anyone, this is what my partitions look like. The Windows data partition, Ubuntu's /boot and '/' partitions, and Mandriva's /boot and '/' partitions had to be within the first 137GB of the hda drive. I really wanted Fedora to be there, but I couldn't work with the anaconda installer.

hda (232GB)
hda1 118MB Ubuntu /boot
hda3 4.6 GB Ubuntu /
hda5 55GB WindowsME data partition
hda6 664MB Ubuntu swap
hda7 2.7GB Ubuntu /var
hda8 9.3GB Ubuntu /usr
hda9 37GB Ubuntu /home
hda10 361MB Mandriva /boot
hda11 4.8GB Mandriva /
hda12 686MB Mandriva swap
hda13 9.9GB Mandriva /usr
hda14 4.8GB Mandriva /var
hda15 97GB Mandriva /home
hda16 3.8GB Mandriva /tmp

hdb (13GB)
hdb1 13GB WindowsME C: