USB mouse install cause unbootable Mandrake also dual boot question
 

Firstly and most importantly, I have just installed Mandrake 10.1 Official edition. The instillation went fine expect for having to run it with the linux noauto command as it just hung when it was detecting the hardware (at the big where it goes black and says procedding... please wait or something like that). The instillation had to be done with a PS2 mouse that I have borrowed from a friend. When the instillation was complete and I tried to set up my USB mouse the control panel just hung and crashed and so when I tried to reboot then this just crashed when it was unmounting the USB hardware. Then when I rebooted it hung again when trying to boot at the USB bit - pressed f1 to get a detailed bootup.

So I had to reinstall the distro. On the second install I completely reinstalled it and when it came to configure the USB mouse it hung again when install the presumed drivers. Having to quit out of the install I can now boot into linux fine but I dearn't try the USB mouse setup as I do not want to have to reinstall this system again. Is there any work round here - the USB is a generic BTC one and it is attached directly to MOBO usb port. I also have a USB hub but i detached this on the second installtion as to see if this was the cause of the problem but obiously not. I really need the USB mouse working as I need to give the PS2 mouse back.


On a different issuse, I installed the OS to my second HD of 10GB. I told the boot loader to install itself to the first sector on the /root partition. This was so my XP on my main HD wasn't affected or its MBR (really a safe guard). Is there anyway to make a boot floppy disk to boot to Mandrake or a similar device without having to touch the MBR/NT loader that XP uses. During the instillation and testing I just disconnected the IDE cable and power for the main HD but this is obviously not practical for everyday use. The bootloader being used is LILO.

Thanks for any help!

You can get a usb to ps2 adapter I have a couple but I cant sqeeze them through the phone jacks to send them to you.

Yeah you have got a point about that - one thing that I should try is using something else via USB - just dont want to mess it up really and have to reinstall it all over again. Might just be that the USB driver/controller is messed up big time. Is there anyway to test this out without a reinstall - tried booting into failsafe when it did mess up on the first install but just crashed anyway!

Not sure if this is any help but, I ran Slax Live CD on my machine before installing Mandrake and was able to use my USB mouse no problem and also didn't need to send any no autodetection parameters to it when I asked it to boot.