This sounds like you are having problems with mounting the CDRom drive.

Could you post a little more about this "used machine". Most PC's have an IDE controller for their hard drives. Many CDroms use SCSI emulation to work, and wind up with a /dev/sda device.

Mandrake 9.1 is old. You may be best advised to get yourself a copy of Mandriva 2006. It is available as a free download now. The later versions have much better hardware recognition, and many more drivers available for hardware. See the links on this site for 'Download Linux'.

Did you get 9.1 installed? I'm not sure by your post. If not, it sounds like you ran fdisk and formatted your 40 gig drive. Mandrake has those tools built in when you install.

A simple way is to just delete your partitions, boot from the install CD, and use the built in tools to partition, format and install. Mandrake will, by default create 3 partitions. 1. will be / (root) 2. will be swap 3. will be home. Of course you can set it up any way you like.

If you can not boot from the CDRom, (some older hardware does not support this option, or it is not enabled in the BIOS) please let us know. You may need a boot diskette to load a driver for the CDRom before you can install.

Thanks Camorri. Nice to have an immediate reply to my query. I don't think the CD drive is faulty. It ran OK when I tried to install Win98SE - though I didn't bother in the end. The "used machine" is a Gateway with 3.5" and CD reader. It does use an IDE controller, but the CD drive does not use SCSI emulation, unless that's been initiated by the Mandrake CDs.

I have ordered Mandriva 2006. No, I did not get 9.1 installed, and I did fdisk and format the HD in DOS. I'll try with a delete of the partitions, though I found this impossible before after deleting the XP Home that the Gateway came with.

It did boot from CD for the install, then went through the normal install path up to formatting partitions hda1 to hda6. It was after this that the error message came up. I also have a boot disk, but this failed even when I set the boot order to floppy/CD/HD in the BIOS. A CD driver is set on startup of the computer.

I don't think there is a problem with your CD drive either. I was trying to make sense out of the error message you got. With your two posts, and knowing you can boot from the CD to the point of partitioning, helps a lot.

Looking back at the posted error, my guess is you may still have a windoze partition left on your hard drive, or at least the partition table indicating the presence of a partition called win_c2.

The Mandriva disk tools are good. When you get your set of 2006 CD's have a close look to see if you can see that partition. It may be something left behind by XP and the previous owner.

Good luck with 2006. I like it for the most part. I had to remove one program that got installed by default. It is called 'kat'. It was hogging cpu time to almost 100% and making my use limited. I had to uninstall it. There are other posts on this topic.

Only other problem so far is shuting down my system by a user. Simply put, it will not shut down, unless I log in as root and issue a shutdown command. Then it behaves itself. I'm still looking for a work around or fix.

Camorri, thanks again for all your help. Even after a complete wipe of the hard drive I still had this Read Only File System. It must have been on the CD, since the drive was blank. Anyway, I now have Mandriva 2006 installed and booting. I have problems after the boot, but will have to read the manual before adding to your work!

Camorri, thanks once again for your help. Mandriva 2006 now running perfectly, so this thread can end.

Glad to hear you have success. Enjoy.