I am completely new to Linux, for 12 years have been in the MS world but thought that I should have a look at Linux (Mandrake 10) I have built new machine (details below) and installed XP without problem – but Linux has been not a pleasant experience so far. As I do wish to try it if there is any advice that would be appreciated. Sequence and problems is a below

Mandrake 10 download and 3 images burnt to CDRom but will nor boot from CD, even though XP did. To solve this floppy created from Mandrake and the install loads and find the CD.
Mandrake will not go past the hardware detection part, says detects imm and ppa devices (don’t know what they are) but when press continue says “error-no valid devices to create new file system”. This seems not to be finding the hard disk.
I have tried Mandrake 9.1 with floppy boot up and this has installed with no problems that I can see. I had hoped that from this I could upgrade to Mandrake 10 but cannot see a way of doing it and when I try Mandrake 10 it still does not find hard dish and gives same error.

Questions:[list=1]Can I upgrade 9.1 to 10 from within Linux and avoid the detection problem – if so how? Normally in XP I would open a CD and run setup.exe but cannot see any way of doing this when I open the mandrake 10 CD in KDE File manager. My setup is very standard and I am surprised that 10 cannot find hard disks but 9.1 can find it.
When I open mandrake 9.1 there is only one account there to choose from with the graphical choice. Root account is not there. How do I login as root and do I need to be login as root to upgrade 9.1 to 10?
When I try the DrakeUser interface it worked first time and then crashed and says that either the file (?) gsmc or pmsc in temp directory already exists or is locked. Both files are there but I am unable to delete them as they are locked and a reboot (even with clear temp on reboot option) does not delete them. How can I clear these locks and delete files?[/list=1]

I suggest you stick with 9.1 for the time being. When a distro is released, it is full of bugs, this applies both to MS and Linux. I have never used XP but was an 3.1, 95, 98 and ME user till I started using Mandrake. I am still no Linux Guru, but as a former Ms man I can tell you the advantages and disadvantages of Linux over Windows.
A new Linux user will probably get fed up fairly early with not being able to run Direct x games and windows files. This is not Linuxs fault as it is Windows that keeps the source secret. So most software developed is the big disadvantage. The other disadvantage is that it is not quiet as user friendly as windows.
But, with a bit of thought and work you will begin to love Linux more and more the longer you use it. I almost gave up after a month, but when I became accustomed to how it worked, that took me six month, I love the system and it is so nice to get mp3s and movies, using Limewire instead of kazza without having to reboot my system to regain connection, or having to backup or reinstall my system. Ussually my system is up from when I wake up to when I go to sleep.
So the main advantage is reliability and the main disadvantage is that it takes a bit of thought and research to get things to work as you want. By the way Winex is great for running windows apps and games.

You can usually try booting with the second disc, and when it tell's you, you put the first disc in and off you go, or if you can get as far as the correct dialogue window, you get offered the option of upgrading to 10 or installing 10.

the bug's and stuff have been pretty well worked out in mandrake 10 community, which means that you want to be trying mandrake 10 official - which is the finalised release.

regards

John