I am currently working on WinXP Pro SP2 (P4 2.8GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD). WinXP is installed in the D: drive (& not in the conventional C: drive though the System partition is the C: drive i.e. C: is the System partition & D: is the Boot partition). I want my machine to give me the dual boot option of WinXP & Mandriva when I start my machine. I successfully downloaded Mandriva from a FTP site (693MB) & burnt it as a DISC IMAGE (according to Nero 6.0) & not as a DATA DISC in a blank CD so that I can install Mandriva in my hard drive using the CD.

I changed the First Boot Device to CDROM in the BIOS & restarted my machine to install Mandriva but I don't know why Mandriva refuses to install in my hard drive. I could boot from the CD successfully after which I was told to select the language, country, keyboard, set the time etc. following which the Mandriva GUI (orange colored) came up but Mandriva didn't install itself in the hard drive though I was given the following kernel options while Mandriva was booting:

noapic
nolapic
acpi=off
acpi=ht
pci=nomsi
pci=nommconf
reboot=b

But since I don't have any idea what these kernel options would do, I didn't select any of the above options. Will selecting one of the above kernel options install Mandriva on the hard disk & give me dual boot option of WinXP & Mandriva when my machine starts?

If yes, then which kernel option should I select? If no, then it means that if I want to use Mandriva, I have to always boot from the CD & after the booting completes, each & every time I have to select the language, country, keyboard, set the time etc. for the Mandriva GUI to come up This will be too monotonous!

While working in Mandriva, I also changed the boot from LILO to GRUB in the Control Center but when I tried to set the boot option, I was told No bootloader could be found (or something of that sort).

Please guide on how do I install Mandriva in my hard drive so that I can get the dual boot option. Note that prior to giving me the above options, Mandriva showed me the following:

Boot options initrd=/boot/cdrom/initrd.gz fastboot splash=silent vga=788

Please note that before Mandriva, I had tried installing Mandrake 8.2 first & then Debian 2.2 but due to some reasons, after the installations, I couldn't proceed after logging in with my login name & password (i.e. I couldn't see the GUIs). In the process, 2 Linux logical drives with EXT2 filesystem & a Linux Swap logical drive also got created. First when I installed Mandrake 8.2, during start-up, my machine gave the following 5 booting options:

linux
linux - nonfb
failsafe
windows
floppy

But since I couldn't proceed after logging into Mandrake, I installed Debian 2.2 but after installing Debian, my machine no longer gave me the above 5 booting options & by default, WinXP was loaded everytime. In fact, unlike Mandrake, Debian didn't give me the option to boot from my hard disk but I was told to create a rescue floppy disk. After this, to log into Debian, I had to use that floppy disk but, as already mentioned above, I couldn't proceed after logging into Debian as well.

BTW, from the Mandriva GUI (which I get into using the CD), I set the boot options (in the Control Center) to Mandriiva & Windows & told Mandriva to use the existing Linux partitions. It does so & tells me that the first 4 boot options (shown above) will be present when my machine boots but still I don't get the dual boot option of XP & Mandriva when I boot my machine from the hard disk. In fact, when I start Mandriva (using the CD) again, I have to set the bootloader again since Mandriva again says No bootloader found. In other words, I have to assign partitions to Mandriva again & repeat all those tasks.

Can someone please help me out? I am a Linux newbie & have been trying to dual boot my machine since last fortnight or so but all my efforts have been in vain & have gone down the drain.

Thanks,

Ron

A couple of questions for a start:

1. What do you mean by the C: drive is the system drive?

2. Which version of Mandriva have you downloaded? AFAIK, the latest version is either three CDs or a DVD's worth of data. (Spring and 2007.0 that I downloaded are 4G iso!)

I've made a few machines dual boot with Mandriva and it's always just worked, so I suspect it's either struggling because of your C/D setup. Are they two physical hard drives or one with two virtual drives?

If you have managed to get the PC to boot from your CD drive then you obviously have some sort of ISO, but I would strongly advise getting 2007.x or at the very least Mandrake 10.0. 8.0 is very old; you're far more likely to be impressed with a later version and you certainly have the hardware for it.

Is it possible btw that you've just got a live CD and not an installation CD?!

Bosco, I will answer your questions after some time (dur to paucity of time) but here's some more info when I used Live Install in Mandriva (which I booted using the CD). First I am asked to choose the mount points for the 2 Linux partitions hdc8 (705MB, ext2) & hdc10 (506MB, ext3). the following options are given in the drop-down list:

/
/boot
/home
/mnt/windows
/opt
/tmp
/usr
/usr/local
/var
/var/ftp
/var/www

If I select either / or /boot for both hdc8 & hdc10, then the following message gets generated:

There is already a partition with mount point / (or /boot depending whether I have selected / or /boot for both hdc8 & hdc10)

If I select /boot for hdc8 & / for hdc10, the next window gives me the option to format the partitions hdc8 & hdc10 though hdc10 is checked by default. If I select / for hdc8 & /boot for hdc10, then like the above, the next window gives me the option to format the partitions hdc8 & hdc10 but hdc8 is checked by default. The next window then starts formatting the partition/s which has/have been checked & after formatting, a message comes up saying Copying in progress....

Now have I selected the correct options in the above steps? I feel this is where I am erring by selecting the wrong options which is why Mandriva isn't getting installed in the hard drive.

When I go to Control Center-->Boot-->Set how the system boots, Mandriva always says No bootloader found. When I click the OK button, the next window first asks me to select the Bootloader to use with the following options in the drop-down list:

GRUB with graphical menu (slected by default)
GRUB with text menu
LILO with text menu

Next I am asked to select the Boot device which has the following options in the drop-down list:

/dev/hdc (selected by default)
/dev/hdc8
/dev/hdc9
/dev/hdc10
/dev/fd0

Keeping the default values selected, when I click the Next button, the next window gives me these 4 boot options:

linux (/boot/vmlinuz) (default OS)
linux - nonfb(/boot/vmlinuz)
failsafe (/boot/vmlinuz)
windows (/dev/hdc1)

Keeping it as it is, when I click the Finished button, this process just terminates without generating any errors.

Do I need to make changes in the above steps so that my machine gives me the dual boot option at start-up?

Thanks once again,

Regards,

Ron