Mandrake 9.2 Installation Problems
 

I am having a real tough time installing Mandrake! Here is the system:

Compaq Deskpro EX Series (PIII 733)
Integrated video, lan, network, etc.
Creative 52X cdrom
Maxtor 40GB drive

Now, here is the problem. No matter how I try to install off of the CD, the installation hangs at the moment it is "formatting hda1". It just sits there. The partitions are created, but nothing seems to happen after that.

Any ideas? I have been reading about some issues with Compaq cdroms, but I have tried the original drive with the system and my Creative drive.

Any direction would help! ;-)

just a quick response
 

I installed mandrake 4 times and every time it hung at a different point.

In fact when i actually left it alone for long enough it did finally install.

I would suggest before giving up that if it hangs then give it at least 25-30 minutes before rebooting.

My mandrake took 20 mins to configure the ethernet card, I thought it was broke but infact if you leave it long enough it might finish.

Not really too enlightening, but you might try tapping "Num Lock" to see if it's really frozen. If Num Lock responds, I'd be inclined to agree with the previous poster, that it may just be taking a while (Mandrake installation does that some times in places). Also you might try checking the quality of the CD you're using (i.e if it's a cheapo CD-R, you might consider actually getting CDs from the Mandrake Store and support the company).

Another thing which might be useful in finding out what's going on is the virtual consoles (CTRL+ALT+F1..F2, etc.). I recall one has misc. installation messages, and one is a shell you can work with.

Text Installation
 

I tried the text installation last night and it did produce some errors. It claimed:

Unable to process NULL pointer. Oops: 0000

I am going to try again today (yes, I already have the real CDs) and see what error messages I can collect.

Frustration!
 

Well, finally, I have an error message from the installer: Error formatting ext3 to hda1.

It seems to find the drive, create the partitions, but then fails at the format stage. Not sure why. The drive is new (and I have tried two different drives) and two different CDROMs. I even went and did an install of Windows 2000 to make sure the installer for that worked, and it did. Hmmm....

Maybe EX systems are not for Linux -- although, I have had people tell me on the forums that they do work. RedHat, SuSE, and Mandrake...

HALP!

If you can, get hold of Knoppix or mandrake move or some other liveCD version and see if it can run on your computer and see your hard drives. If yes, I would try to download the mandrake CDs again (at least CD1).

MandrakeMove
 

I will download MandrakeMove and see if that works. Maybe there is a problem with the controller driver. But, that doesn't make sense either...

Anyway, I will try it. I also tried two differnet Mandrake Installers (the real one I borrowed) and the downloaded ISO.

Will let everyone know what happens...