Installation of bootloader failed
 

"the following error occurred:
: ybin: /dev/hda2 appears to be mounted! aborting."

That's all the message says and the only option is to select "OK" but doing so only refreshes the screen and returns to the excat same point.

This comes at the tail end of what appeared to be a smooth clean instal of Mandrake 9.1 for PowerPC on an iMac G3/400 (NEWORLD) 'gumdrop'.

the full hw specs can be found here: iMac G3/400 DV (Summer 2000 - I/R) Specs (Summer 2000 DV, M7639LL/A*, PowerMac2,2, M5521, 1857) @ EveryMac.com

specifically this unit is all original, including the CD-RW and 10GB hdd, except that I have maxed the RAM to 1GB.

*unfortunately, it does not have the Combo Drive, so I am limited to CD installers, as opposed to DVD

the hardware is fully functional on this unit, but it feels like its trying to run across the bottom of the swimming pool when running Mac OS. So I figured it would make a most excellent device upon which a newbie like myself could cut his Linux teeth.

However, I am beginning to have my doubts. I have tried the MintPPC mini ISO and the Debian 6.0.3 netinstall, but repeatedly failed to acquire needed packages from the mirrors.

The 3-CD set of Mandrake 9.1 launched and ran so smooth I actually thought I had found my reward. However, as the end of CD #3 approached, I encountered the message quoted in my opening statement.

At this point all I know to do is hard power down the system and maybe give it another run. But what do I do if I hit the same wall again?

Hello,

I also had many problems installing on a powerbook g4 these days. Before it wasnt a problem but as you have already seen the distros have been dropped.

The last time I installed I used ydl http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/downloads/ It worked very well.

It could be that the distro doesnt like how your hdds are mounted. If you have a live cd you could try to fdisk your hdd with a new partition table and then reboot and try again. I had to do that with one of my drives when it didnt want to install the boot loader.

Good luck