mandrake 9.2 freezes during install
 

i have xp pro on my first hard drive.
i have a second drive that i am attempting to install mandrake 9.2 on.
when i get to the installing system, it starts for about 10 seconds and then freezes.

any ideas?

try the command line install and tell us your errors or when it stops.

Also make sure plug and play is turned off in the bios and make sure the hard drives are installed properly. Don't rely on M$ running to tell if its installed the right way. M$ does things much differently than linux.

it appears to be hanging at the installing package perl.

Did you run the md5sums on the downloaded ISO's?

You can always uncheck the perl libraries and install them later if all else fails.

yes i ran the md5sums and it was ok.
how do i do a command line install?

That option should be the first one you see when you boot to the install disk. Or start the install.

i boot the install disk and went to the gui interface. i didn't see that option there, but when i go to select the packages to install, i found it listed, removed it and it does the same thing...i am going back to try it again...

can't find anywhere in the bios to disable plug+pray...its a dell pc...there is actually not much in the bios settings (i am sure thats not an option-i have seen it in other pc's)

still hangs on the same spot-although i thought i removed the perl package.

It should ask you to hit f1 or enter at the very first gui screen you see. Hit f1.

yes, it does and i get into that no prob. i get all the way thru the partitions and to the package selection

i auto allocated the partition on the 2nd hard drive, do you think that is the cause
? sorry for the stupid q's, i am pretty new to this linux stuff (obviously) and thanks 4 the help

No it shouldn't be a problem at all. Thats why its there. To make this easier.

It sounds like you either have a bad hard drive. You could find a manufactures utility to check it over and maybe fix it.
Or you have a bad burn to the cdrom. Have you tried unchecking the bad files or just skipping them when asked.
I too had this problem at one install and even after waiting and skipping the supposedly bad file the next one was bad and so on and so on.
It turned out I had a bad burn do to burning it to fast (12X) try reburning it slower.
If your getting errors at random parts of the install then I would say it was either memory chips or a funky cd drive but that doesn't sound like the case.