Installed! Mandrake 9.1 - with errors
 

Hey guys!

I did it. I finally got Mandrake Linux up and running. But I've had some major problems. Not with Mandrake itself, but getting it here. Here's the recap:

I downloaded the installation docs, help files and tutorials from the Mandrake Linux Documentation Project.

I followed the directions for preparing the harddrive -

* Ran scandisk on the drive (a single-partition NTFS drive)
* Ran defrag to clean up the disk
* Had already run a backup of the system last week - took 25 CDs.. didn't want to do it again.. ick.
* Used Partition Magic to resize the NTFS partition and create a linux partition.

The last part is where I ran into trouble. I selected the C drive to resize and create an extra drive from. It asked me if I wanted another primary partition or an extended/logical partition - it reccomended an extended/logical partition, but when I tried to make one it said, "No primary partitions exist on the current drive". So I told it to make another primary partition.

It then asked whether I was putting an operating system on the partition - I said yes, then told it "Linux". Then it suggested that I make a Linux swap file partition, so I allocated a portion of the Linux partition for the swap file. It then rebooted the machine and began the processes.

All seemed fine when suddenly *wham!* it gave me an error - I want to say it was like.. 2518? But it went by so fast that I didn't get to see it. It stopped what it was doing and tried to reboot the computer. Came up to the Windows boot menu and I chose the option for a regular boot into windows. However, it go partially booted, and then rebooted itself. I tried every option for booting up - safe mode, last known working configuration, etc - none of them worked. It would start to reboot into Windows and then reboot again in the middle of it.

I finally found a Windows 98 startup disk, ran it, and it showed the C drive as being empty. But when I ran fdisk to look at the partitions, it said there was an NTFS drive there with full data.

I tried everything I know to access the data. I wouldn't mind losing all of it except *one* *tiny* thing - I forgot to backup my turbo tax file for this year, and although the IRS has accepted my return, the state still hasn't and I have to use the program file from where it is to complete the return process once it's been accepted.

Finally, I decided to try to install linux without touching the other partition. I don't know if there's a way linux can examine the other data, but if I can find a way to access the NTFS partition and save the turbotax file, I can go ahead and reinstall everything. However, I have *several* questions.

Linux installed perfectly. Not one hitch. It was beautiful. My lan and cable modem are working, but for some reason, I have no sound even though it says my sound is configured. If anyone has any hints on this, or where to go for answers, I'd appreciate it. If I can find the docs under linus - new system, flailing around a bit - then I'll look in the troubleshooting section. I have an onboard sound card. Don't know the type. It came in a Compaq Presario 5000 series.

So - questions:

Is there something I can do to access the NTFS partition on the harddrive from linux, so that I can save the files?

Once I do that, is there a way to reinstall Windows XP without having to go through and wipe the disk and reinstall linux. I'm not concerned about the linux install - obviously it was easy and went well - I'm concerned about having to repartition that dumb NTFS drive once XP makes it again, and having the whole system crash once more!

If there isn't a way to install XP *after* Mandrake 9.1, is there any troubleshooting which I should be doing that can prevent Partition Magic from eating my system every time I try to resize the NTFS in order to make room for linux?

While I feel as if I have triumphed by getting a working version of linux on this system, my dancing is limited to the fact that linux works - and well.. Unfortunately, I still need XP and I *have* to retrrieve that stupid file. I wish I hadn't forgotten that I hadn't backed it up. This would be moot if I'd remembered. *sigh*

Thanks for the help - as always! *hugs to all*

Sadie
(no longer reading documents, now navigating and learning Mandrake, but mourning data loss)

hi sadie,

if the patition hasn't been corrupted at all, then you should be able to see all the files on it from linux -- usually under the /mnt/ directory structure.

if it isn't automounted, you can look in the mandrake control center, under 'mount points', then select 'disk drake'. you should then see your partitions, and by clicking on the (usually blue) NTFS partition you can select its mount point.

i have five mounted NTFS and/or FAT32 partitions under mandrake 9.1 at the moment... sharing a FAT32 partition bewteen the OSs makes a lot of sense -- storing music, video, etc. that way you can avoid redundancy :)

once it's mounted, you should be able to read the file off and make a copy of it. NTFS is read-only under linux, so you should use FAT32 if you want linux and windows to share a partition.

hope that helps a little...?

It helped a LOT! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sadie
(with renewed hope for her poor system)

Okay. It's showing the drive as being mounted, but there's nothing in the directory. When I go into diskdrak from the control panel, it shows it as mounted, but then gives me the option to mount it. Whereas the d drive shows as being mounted with only the option to "unmount". Both drives are showing as empty, though. Is there anything I can do now?

Anybody?

Sadie

cool! next step :)
 

sure -- once it's mounted, you don't access files from diskdrake any more, so you won't see any in there.

quick explanation! mounting is like adding the partition or the cd to your filesystem. all it means is that the OS is now aware of another filesystem that it will display at the mount point. windows partitions, and cd drives, etc, will almost always be mounted in the directory /mnt/. my own /mnt/ directory looks like this:

/mnt/cdrom/
/mnt/c_windows/
/mnt/d_aenea/
/mnt/e_tranquility/
... etc :)

so, if i browse down these directories, it's like peering into the files and dierctories that are stored there.

if, from the command line, i type "ll /mnt/cdrom" then it will list all the files on the cd. or, "ll /mnt/c_windows" then i'll see all the files on my c: drive -- it might well be called something different, like /mnt/win_c by default, so have a look at yours.

same process from konqueror. load it up, and just browse into the mounted directories :)

in diskdrake, what you are doing is choosing which partitions get mounted for you at startup, and what their /mnt/ name is going to be. i changed mine to start with the drive letter of the partition under windows just to make it easy to remember!

Re: cool! next step :)
 

Shoot! I don't think I was clear. I did it in three steps. First I checked the /mnt directory. It showed 2 drives for windows - both empty. Then I went into diskdrak and checked the mountings. My confusion about them being absent in diskdrak had nothing to do with files being absent. I just noticed an incosistency and wondered if it meant anything. Then (third) I went back to /mnt and checked again. Still no files. I was wondering if there was anything else I can try. I don't think the drives are empty but they're not showing anything.

As a sideline note: I was experiencing some troubles which made me reboot the system, and when I went back in as root, the system disk for windows was available - just the one with all the restore data, not the one with any of my personal data. This, however, makes me wonder something: if I copy the restore points to CD and then reinstall windows xp, will I be able to copy those restore points back into the proper directory and then restore from them? If I can do that, I can save that file that I need.

Thanks for all the help.

Sadie - sleepless in Linuxland

i'm obviously over-newbie-ing you, my fault :)

if both drives are shown as mounted, in /mnt/ and in diskdrake, but you can only see files in one of them, then the other might be damaged... (are they both NTFS? i've noticed that mandrake doesn't automatically assign FAT32 partitions mount points - but if you've given them both mount points in diskdrake then that's probably not the problem, hmmmm)

a quick bit about games -- 99% of windows games won't work under linux without an emulation layer, like WineX. this has mixed results, from "as good as to "completely failed to do anything"... they maintaim a list of compatible titles. sims apparently works perfectly, for example. (quake 3 is the 1% i can think of that doesn't need WineX, as idsoftware offer a linux installer/executable as well, which uses the windows resource files)

if you want to msg (i saw the other thread), i'm on icq # 7920145, or yahoo as 'alexembee' (well, i THINK i am! i'm actually finishing off installing mandrake 9.1 on my laptop, and just got Gaim 0.61 installed, heh)

Trying to get messengers to work..
 

I'm trying to get an ICQ/Yahoo/AIM compilation clone running, but not having any success. I apparently need to have an ICQ ID prior to starting this. I'm going to try to get the yahoo clone running, and see how that works. Everytime I get something installed successfully, even if it doesn't work, it's a major triumph.

tell me about it!
 

know what you mean. trying to get all the bits of this laptop running is a nightmare. it was so much easier on the desktop!

a good messenger clone is gaim. the latest version isn't on the mandrake disks. assuming your net connection is working (you're writing from your linux box?) type the following as root:

note the case! there is one 'linux' with a capital 'L', and this does matter :)

once it's added this to your repository, just type "urpmi gaim" and the latest version will be downloaded, installed, and added to your mandrake menu.

urpmi is great stuff... the texstar RPMs are a good resource for mandrake users

Sadie, for your win partitions under Linux: (we'll do it the windows-way )
In KDE click on your home dir. and keep clicking, first 2x up, then you see all the files in your root partition, click on mnt ( might take 10 sec.) ,click on a win partition, first you will see nothing, but wait, it might take 20 sec, then if anything is left in there it will show up.
I'm just thinking you are to quick, seeing blank /mnt/win_c, and closing.

For the sound: look for Kmix and Aumix in the start menu, look if nothing is muted or that the level is high enough.
If those are ok look in /etc/modules.conf and post us what you see.

Bruno

[QUOTE]Originally posted by onurb
I'm just thinking you are to quick, seeing blank /mnt/win_c, and closing.

For file:/mnt/win_c 0 "Items - 0 Files - 0 Directories" is stated at the bottom of the window when it opens. I didn't think I was "being too quick", but I checked just to be sure by waiting for a while to see if it came up with anything. I got nothing. I've also checked by logging in as "su root" and navigating to the directory where the NTFS disc should be, there's nothing showing.

For the sound: look for Kmix and Aumix in the start menu, look if nothing is muted or that the level is high enough.
If those are ok look in /etc/modules.conf and post us what you see.

When I open KMix it gives me a blank window. Settings don't seem to address anything other than window positioning, and as a result, I accidentally lost the menu bar and can't get it back - ugh.

When I open Aumix, it acts like it's thinking, but never opens anything at all. I tried twice and it seemed like it was "loading" something but then just stopped.

Since neither of those appears to do anything, here's the results of the search you reccomended. For etc/modules.conf it keeps saying that there's no such directory. I logged in as "su root" navigated into the etc directory and then tried "cd modules.conf". It says "directory does not exist". But if I type "dir modules.conf" or "l modules.conf" it says "modules.conf". I think it's seeing something there, but I can't access it. As far as navigating via windows is concerned, I still haven't figured out how to change the permissions in the GUI in order to let myself access certain things. Therefore, logging in as "su root" under Konsole and navigating that way is easiest.

Btw - thanks for the help!

Okay, I bypassed all the problems by exiting out of myself and logging back in as root, then using the GNOME interface to navigate into /etc/. This solved my permissions problem. I was able to see that modules.conf is a file that could be read using gedit, so I pulled it up, and here's what I got. Hope this helps.

probeall scsi_hostadapter ide-scsi
probeall usb-interface usb-uhci
alias eth0 eepro100
alias sound-slot-0 snd-sb8
above snd-sb8 snd-pcm-oss

Thanks again for the patience!

Don't log in as root. As a user, open up an console and type su. Then type root's password.

I hope you didn't use ms backup. It never works correctly. Use Norton Ghost or something similar. In Norton Ghost make a partiton image because it is a lot easier to control where the image is going to be copy to in the future.

For sound to work, you need ALSA running at boot up or activate it at Mandrake Control Center in services. If you didn't see ALSA, install it either through install package or through open source.

If you are impatient, go to system internals and download NTFS driver for DOS. Then copy all the files you need.

Go into /etc/fstab and look for ro on the same line of your NTFS drive.

Sadie:

Looks like Partition Magic messed up your win-part allright, very sorry for that, but don't do anything drastic yet, help might come up.

First about Kmix, you're right, it looks like you see nothing, but next to your clock you will see that a little blue loudspeaker did apear on your taskbar, rightclick on it and chose restore, then you'll see the settings.

Aumix: if settings are ok you can store them by rightklicking on the left-top of the panel ( where you see the black and white point )

Also check the soundlevel in xmms ( same as winamp in windows ) put it half way up.

Would you mind to check if you've got "alsa" installed? To do this type in a console <whereis alsa> the result should be /etc/share/alsa. If not you should install alsa from the CD's you've got. ( let me know )

BE ALERT:
Before changing you /etc/modules.conf: Try the Kmix, Aumix, and alsa stuff first ! All reported problems related to sound in 9.1 were because it was low or muted in the mixer-settings ! ( and there have been quiet a few people complaining about it )

/etc/modules.conf: First a little trick, if you want to see a file like modules.conf, you open a console, type <su> ( without the <> ) it will ask you for your root password, after that you type < cat /etc/modules.conf >. ( watch the space between cat and /etc)
A handy little manual for that sort of commands see the "One Page Linux Manual" http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~squa...inuxmanual.pdf Print it out and keep it next to your computer.
Ok now the file itself: The first two lines are for your usb interface, the third for the ethernet adapter. The last two are for sound and depend on your hardware, THEY DO LOOK ALLRIGHT ON FIRST SIGHT, but mine are:

above snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-slot-0 snd-intel8x0

These seem to be pretty universal you could try them, but first back-up your modules.conf as it is:
In a console <su> <password> <cp /etc/modules.conf /home/sadie ( supposing your home dir is sadie. Watch the space between conf and /home !)
( putting the backup back in place: cp /home/sadie/modules.conf /etc ) ( Again watch the space between conf and /etc!)

Ok: to change the lines in /etc/modules.conf,
Again in a console <su> <password> <emacs /etc/modules.conf> change the lines and to safe the file: Ctrl+x, Ctrl+c, y

As for the chat program gaim, this should be in your startmenu under networking, instant messaging. If not we'll have to install it from CD

I hope this did cover all your questions,. if not just ask again.

Bruno


PS: there has been a long list of security updates and bugfixes released for 9.1 a few days ago ( just under 100MB ! ) You might want to do the updates first: Mandrake Control Center ( NOT the Kde Control Center ! ) -> Software management -> Mandrake update.

PS2: I just saw that you were asking about installing XP again: You could do that but will have to boot into Mandrake from CD next time because the MBR will be overwritten by XP. This is no problem because you can restore the MBR for Mandrake after you've done by running /sbin/lilo and adding XP to your lilo-file. ( Usually you first install XP and after that Linux )

Linux can be one big wild adventure ;)

Bruno

Update!
 

:confused: :confused:

Okay, UPDATE, for those monitoring my progress - or confusion - whichever is funnier!

I downloaded an NTFS reader for DOS from http://www.sysinternals.com. (I can still access the computer through DOS by using an old Windows 98 boot disk. I just couldn't read the NTFS partition.) I unzipped it in Linux, copied all the files onto floppy (they were altogether less than the size of one dik - thank goodness!) I ran DOS, installed the utility and ran it and lo-and-behold! there was the NTFS partition. I can read everything, but now I can't get the stuff saved anywhere - no CD-R support under DOS - GRR!! - and the files are too big for floppy. DOS doesn't recognize the linux partition, so I can't just transfer the files there.

So, as it stands, I've downloaded a DOS driver for my burner, but I can't find any DOS burning software. If anyone can help me with this, I can save my harddrive. Yay! After that - we'll have to see. Would it be easier at this point, to keep the linux which works about 90% correctly so far, and reinstall Windows, having to rebuild the boot manager afterwards? Or would it be better to try to reinstall windows first, then fight with repartitioning and then reinstall linux?

Thanks again!