Ok I need some help had mandriva installed from dvd32 disc on Win xp operating system. tried to put it on vista ultimate and it can not find any cdrom drives(2) and no hard drives(2 sata) can some one help me out. I am not very savy with Linux.

But what exactly is your problem?
When you insert the vista dvd on boot, does the system recognize it? If the problem is there then linux has nothing to do with it neither win xp.
That problem could be a misconfiguration in the BIOS. To solve that you have to order your boot sequence so that your cdrom drive is seeked before the hdd.

My problem is I can not install my Mandriva 2006 on this computer.It boots just fine from the cdrom I select enter to install and then it goes to install and I get the errors can't find no cdrom or hard drive from the disc.

The problem may be related to the fact that your hdd are sata. I am not very into the subject but I believe that you need to tell the installer to load the modules that give sata disks functionality. I'm afraid I can't help you, but I am sure that someone else that knows about the matter will be able to give you some advice.

OK, since you mention Vista, I assume you got a (brand) new computer. Right? If that is correct, you should get the latest mandriva instead of the one you are trying to install. Mandriva will install fine on the average computer that has been running XP for a few years but it's just not recent enough to deal with the latest hardware. The issues you are describing affected me as well last year, when I was trying to install to a dual core computer with a new ASUS mobo and SATA II drives. When I downloaded the newest mandriva shortly after New Year, it had been updated enough to support all of my hardware out-of-the-box.

Thanks Jay73 mine is a duo core Asus mother board with 2 sata drives as well so I think you are right. I have down loaded the Spring live and it works. so my next step is get it installed