My problem is:

I have the 3 iso images on a windows machine. I have resized the windows partition so half the HD is available for win, and half for linux. The ISO's are on the windows partition. I do not have a CD burner, is there a way that I can install strictly using the hard drive. Thanks, if this is to vague just ask for more info and i will gladly give my input.

Don't know that one, but if you really need to, you can get someone to send you burned and checksummed copies for nominal prices. I got a few copies of various distros from www.chguy.net (I live in Canada - they're in Western Cadana) I paid $5 for each cd they burned for me to cover shipping. It was a nice tradeoff. There are quite a few places that'll do that for you if you have no luck with the hard drive ISO thing. (You may want to see if there's a net install version of your chosen distro. That's how I got Debian installed the first time (and FreeBSD, and NetBSD...over dialup!) I'd like to know the answer too. Is there a way to do the HD based ISO thing?

I know it is possable, for Red Hat anyway. I was not impressed with red hat although. I installed that by using a boot disk and it ran right off of the iso's. I hope it is possable to do that with mandrake.

There are instructions and a foppy image on the first disks ISO. Burn the one for hardrive install to a floppy and follow the instructions. Basicly it'll just ask for the hard drive location of the ISO's. Remember that your in linux and not M$ so the harddrive is named different.
hda1 /..........

I remember that now. I did that with the base package for Debian way back when.....thanks for bringing that up! That's the answer!

BTW if using the hard drive install method the ISO's need to be on a FAT ext2FS, ext3FS or ReiserFS partition. See MDK's website for complete documentation.

AlrightI got to the Install scren usng the ISO's.

New prblem althoug. Im using the newest "hd.img" file to make my floppy boot disk and he GUI installation screen it says that my dsk is out of data. Huh?

Now thats a ned one on me.
how big is the hd.img file?
Was the floppy empty to start?
Just the basic questions for now since I'm clueless about this one.

Hi.

I installed Mandrake Linux via my harddrive because my burner was not working (huh!? it's working in linux now? Now, I don't have to buy a new one.)

Anyway, Make sure you have a Fat/Fat32 partition and extract the ISO image files using WinISO or WinImage (the trial version is fine, you won't need it after Mandrake is installed).

1. Extract CD1.ISO and make sure that you extract it with all directories intact, to a location such as "c:\linux" (replace "c" with what ever drive letter you have)

2. Next, look inside CD2.ISO and copy the folder "rpms2" to "c:\linux\Mandrake\" and

3. look inside CD3.ISO and copy the folder "rpms3" to "c:\linux\Mandrake\"

So now, inside the "Mandrake" folder you should have
"rpms" "rpms2" "rpm3" and any other folder from CD1.ISO.

4. Make a Hardrive Boot disk. Get a working, formatted floppy and launch the program
"c:\linux\dosutils\rawwritewin.exe" locate the image file in "c:\linux\images\hd.img" and click on "write".

5. Boot up with your new disk and when you are asked "what drive do you want to use" YOU will have to decide, since I don't know your configuration. Next it will ask you for the "location of the linux install" type "LINUX" without the quotes or "linux".

6. The Magic will now begin!


Note: If you try to install using the just the ISO images (using hd.img) without extracting it first, the Mandrake install will ask you for the other "CDs" AFIK there is no way to "change" to the next image file.

Dude, you must be jesus. Thatwas not my original problem but that was another that just occoured. My problem was using an outdated hd.img file. I just un isod the cd1 and used that hd.img. Thanks forall your help ;-)