Startup Problems
 

I am new to Linux and just installed Mandrake. I feel everything with the installation went well. When it finished, it told me to take out the media and reboot. So I did. Now, I am stuck on the screen that says "Gateway" and "Boot Menu" and "Bios Settings". I can't go anywhere from this. I've tried pressing all of the f# and nothing happens. I've tried starting my comp up with the 1st mandrake cd and it still doesn't work. I can't even get to windows right now. Could somebody please help me? Thanks.

A screen with Bios settings???

Isn't this a problem with your mobo?

not the bios settings screen, its the elementery screen that tells you what to press to go to bios settings. But once again, the pc won't let me do anything.

sounds like bad hardware to me.

But it worked before. Why can't it still at least load windows?

If you're only getting to the screen that states something like F10 for settings then I would say try to flash your BIOS. I can't think of anything that could be installed on a hard drive that would cause your system to hang like that. I did experience that once before on a Dell that I installed a Linksys NIC on. It turned out the NIC wasn't compatible with the system board.
If you didn't install any new hardware then flash the BIOS.
If you did install new hardware remove it and then try to boot again.

how do you "flash the bios"? If by that you mean press f2 to go to the bio settings, then that doesn't work. But I'm open to any ideas.

You will need to find out the BIOS you're using. You may need to research what system board you have and what it shipped with. You will then need to download the BIOS from the website. The BIOS files are usually unpacked to a floppy and then you boot up with that floppy. The software on the floppy will them prompt you for what you need to enter or do.
If you have the manual for your system board it may contain additional documentation.

Why would the installation of mandrake make this happen?

It shouldn't, and probably didn't. There may be an underlying problem with your hardware that just happened to flare up now. But before you get too desperate, try a cold restart if you haven't already; for some reason, that seems to help some time.

The problem appears to be in your BIOS. The BIOS runs before anything related to the operating system is even loaded. If you post the make and model of your computer, somebody might be able to help more.

My computer model is a gateway 300S
. Just to be clear, nothing about any OS is starting. The problem is that I can't do ANYTHING. The computer just hangs. I can't enter my bios settings and I can't enter my boot menu. It just sits there. I'm going to try and find bios or some boot disk and see what that does for me.

This may be a good place to start. If Gateway records info correctly.

http://support.gateway.com/support/

It wants your serial number so get that first.