hey guys

ok basically, i want to setup archlinux to try it out and during the install i select automatic partition and it creates 4 partitions

ive tried manual but it fails

i want to set up arch to have 2 partitions only, not 4, a swap and then the rest as just one big space on my 500GB hard disk

Fails how ?.
I've never done it any other way - just a / and swap.

well during the automatic partitioning, guided whatever its called, it has suggested numbers and if u go cancel it just cancels, when i select option 2, it says some mount error, then option 3 i havnt tried yet

Have you read the install guide ?.
With Arch you will need to be prepared to do a lot of reading. Nice distro, but not "set and forget".

yea i have, i get most of the installation, in VMware ive gotten to the point of having a desktop EV, but thats VMWare were i just did automatic partitioning

the partition is the main place were im confused, even with reading material, its pretty tough to understand for me, basically

i have 2 hard disk

1 Seagate 500GB sdb - boot drive, debian installed with bootloader and 2 partitions / and swap
1 Western digital 500GB sda - windows 7

i want the same setup with archlinux on the linux drive as i had with debian, a / and swap partition and thats it, but the automatic options wont let me do that and manual confuses me, when i select the sdb drive in manual, it starts up the text partitioning, and stops, and i hit enter and it returns, then when i type in /dev/sdb1 it comes up with my 49000MB space partition

the 3rd option just confuses me more, the manual setup of everything

just a quick note

when i got manually setup partitions

i get 2 options /dev/sda or /dev/sdb

i select sdb ( my linux hard disk ) and it says "error bad partition 1:" then something a cyl cycle and exits the partitioner

but when i go to "other" and type /dev/sdb1 and sdb5 , both work, one is my main partition, the other is swap, which was setup via debian earlier, so i try to make a new partition, select option 83 for sdb1 and option 82 for sdb5 and when i go write changes, i select yes, and nothing happens, it just takes me back to the black screen with the partition info with sdb1, and sdb5 says theres no bootable device select even tho i made sdb1 bootable

this might help https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide or this http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20...ive-for-linux/ and if you should try to find something on google that would help you

it is hard at first (at least it was for me) but after a while you figure it out with the help of google and lq

i managed to get the partitions going, now the problem is grub, after the install i reboot and grub cant mount the partition

did you mount them your self because if you did and mounted them to the wrong thing that could mess it up
p.s you shouldnt reboot until you have grub installed you partitions will be saved but raid and lvm may not be