I'm having trouble installing Mandriva on the Aspire One Hdd. I used Unetbootin to copy the files to the usb drive and to make it bootable. When I boot, the Unetbootin screen pops up and I have 3 options: Default, live and harddisk. However, when I try the option "live", the mandriva install screen shows, but freezes. Same with the option "default".

I followed this guide (more or less):

1. Download the regular CDROM/DVD iso image.
2. Have a large enough USB key ready, formatted as FAT16. Mount it.
- Here I used the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, but formatted the drive as FAT32 as FAT16 was not an option.

3. Use the (precompiled, for Windows or Linux) program Unetbootin (Universal Netbook Bootable Installer) from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ . This provides a very simple GUI to extract the ISO image and put it on the USB key.
4. Unmount the USB key.
5. Boot the target machine. In the BIOS, select USB Disk
6. You'll see a Unetbootin boot menu. Select 'linux', then [TAB] to edit the options. Change "automatic=method:cdrom" to "automatic=method:usb"

Okai, I see the menu, but no "linux" option. If I go to the option "default" and press TAB, I get:

/ubnkern initrd=ubninit splash=silent vga=788

If I do the same with the option "live" I get:

/boot/vmlinuz initrd=/boot/cdrom/initrd.gz splash=silent vga=788

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
7. The Mandriva installer will begin.
8. At "Please choose the installation method", select Hard Disk
9. Select the disk and partition (eg sdb and sdb1) corresponding to the USB key.
10. At "Please enter the directory (or ISO image file), leave this blank, and press Enter.
11. Continue as normal.

Mmm.

Unetbootin is some trash toodude

it uses an old syslinux still too I think...

anyway

edit the syslinux.cfg yourself
and use the mandriva kernel/initrd

post your syslinux.cfg please

are you gettin a graphical menu or like a gray-whitish shit menu?

I get a Unetbootin gray-whitish menu, and a blue mandriva install screen - it freezes and after a while, a black screen of death pops up with a mocking and continuously blinking _

This?

default vesamenu.c32
prompt 0
menu title UNetbootin
timeout 100

label unetbootindefault
menu label Default
kernel /ubnkern
append initrd=/ubninit splash=silent vga=788

label ubnentry0
menu label live
kernel /boot/vmlinuz
append initrd=/boot/cdrom/initrd.gz splash=silent vga=788

label ubnentry1
menu label harddisk
kernel /ubnkern
append initrd=/ubninit

Mmmm

ok, try adding the automatic=method:usb

so its like this

also, is there a file in there named menu.c32?

if, so, change "defualt vesamenu.c32"
to "default menu.c32"

and, also give the full path to menu.c32
so if it's in usb in syslinux folder

make it
this will give you a better menu

also, is the initrd in /boot/cdrom/ ?
try that

Okai. I modified everything like you said.

- is the initrd in /boot/cdrom/ ?
Yes.

Did it work?

I'm not familiar with mandriva....

make sure to choose the live option too

to get rid os the splash try "splash=off"
and also try "vga=normal"
if it doesn't work

Syslinux 3.72....

"Unknow keyword in configuration file: ui"

and then it jumps to Mandriva install screen and freezes.

I was wondering, there are several syslinux.cfg files, and the contents of them are different. Could this be it? 1 on the usb, 1 syslinux folder and 1 in boot/cdroom/

OK

post all the syslinux.cfg's for me...

Ah, now I get it. When Unetbootin was done, I changed the name of the folder isolinux to syslinux, and inside the folder, I changed the file isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg. I remember I had to do this when I was installing Mint 7. Anyways, I changed it back to isolinux. But here:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
stslinux.cfg from boot/cdrom/

default live
prompt 1
timeout 40
display help.msg
ui gfxboot.com /boot/syslinux/bootlogo
label live
kernel /boot/vmlinuz
append initrd=/boot/cdrom/initrd.gz splash=silent vga=788
label harddisk
localboot 0x80
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
syslinux from usb/

default vesamenu.c32
prompt 0
menu title UNetbootin
timeout 100

label ubnentry0
menu label live
kernel /boot/vmlinuz
append initrd=/boot/cdrom/initrd.gz automatic=method:usb splash=silent vga=788

label ubnentry0
menu label live
kernel /boot/vmlinuz
append initrd=/boot/cdrom/initrd.gz splash=silent vga=788

label ubnentry1
menu label harddisk
kernel /ubnkern
append initrd=/ubninit

------------------------------------------------------------------

After I changed the name of the folder, I booted and It started reading from the usb, but stoped at:
mount: mounting usr on /live/usr failed: Invalid argument
rmdir: 'usr' Directory not empty
rmdir: cannot rename '/initrd/live': No such file or directory
mv: cannot rename '/initrd/dev/*': No such file or directory
Freeing unused kernel memory 460k freed.
Warning: unable to open an initial console.