I have just installed my Linux Mandriva 10.2. And I have some perplexing questions as i am having some problems, Firstly i let the program create its own needed partitions in my windows partition but it seems to have created too many operating systems. I had windows Pro Sp2 before installation now i have a choice of

Windows
Windows1 (???? What is this????)
Failsafe
Linux
Linux_nonfb

All i wanted was one windows and one Mandriva, why has it put two windows on my machine and two linux's what does this second one do of each?.

Secondly when i boot up my machine a mandrake loader starts to choose one of those five. If i choose nothing it automatically goes to mandriva. I do not want this i want to automatically boot to windows (i.e not ask me what i want, just load windows) and maybe give me the choice to hit a key to load mandriva. Similar how you hit F8 during initial booting to get safe windows booting.

Thirdly. Where are, and how do i access the folders and files on My Slave and USB External Hard drives. It recognises my slave during configuration test but does not seem to notice i have a USB hard drive running (it noticed my USB printer though so its not the USB ports) But how do i also open up the drive to browse the files inside. (i.e where on earth is "My Computer".

Fourthly Connecting to the internet. How do i do it. I have UKonline broadband. And i need to install the drivers for my modem (there on the USB hard drive). I then (on windows) open the installed modem program and click dial and enter a password. How do i do this on Mandriva as i dont see no taskbar of applications just a shortcut taskbar at the bottom.

Thanks
Anthony

windows1 is probably it's interpretation of an additional entry in your NT bootloader. and the two linux ones are one with the "pretty" boot that depends on "advanced" graphics capabilities of your card and monitor (a framebuffer using vesa 2.0 extensions) and one without and oy that, an "ugly" boot. the failsafe is a minimal boot for linux incase things go wrong. you can always open up the config file to take a look at the actual options for each entry. i'm assuming that's a grub menu, so look at /boot/grub/grub.conf. if it's liilo, check /etc/lilo.conf

again if it's grub, edit the "default" value in grub.conf, likewise for lilo. on grub you do not need to do anything, on lilo, you need to run "lilo" as root to update your MBR. I know there's a way to change this directly in the control centre thingy too.

where can i see my hard drives and hard drive partitions? just trying mandriva...

Firstly
Windows1 could also be if you have a backup copy of windows on you hard drive and Lilo is assuming that it is a working installation of windows.

You can edit Lilo ( bootloader ) in the Mandrake Control centre
go Main menu, system, configuration, configure your computer
enter root password
and enter the Mandrake Control Centre
go Boot
go Bootloader
ignore the first screen and just go next
the next screen will bring up the list of options
you see at start up
if you dont need / want windows1 you can delete it
( try selecting windows1 on startup to see if you need it )
Linux-nonbfb can be deleted too
( again if your system boots OK when you select Linux )
and windows can be set to be the automatic default
just click on the windows entry
click modify
and check default

BE VERY CAREFUL WHAT YOU DO HERE AS YOU CAN STUFF UP YOUR SYSTEM BIG TIME - HAVE A GOOD LOOK AROUND FIRST

floppy