i am trying to install Mandriva as in subject of this thread-
directly after HD partitioning and formatting it gives me this error "an error has occured no hdlists found" but upon inspection of the files on my cd, there are hdlist files... i am using downloaded images burnt if this info helps...
i realize this is a common post, but i havent seen any for 10.2 and none have a final solution to the problem... any help would be great, thanx.

Well, I don't know much about "hdlists", but did you check the integrity of the downloads? i.e. check the md5sum ?

Cos if you've only got windows, you'd need an app like this one to do that. Actually downloading and burning the isos' via windows isn't an issue as that is exactly what i used to do until I found that it was less stress for me to wait and buy a copy of mandrake whatever directly from them - I never had any trouble that way.

Though the 2005LE that I tried was a mag front disc (linux format mag). the only reason I've decided to try the SuSE 9.3 is because some of the not so well known packages/apps, if they have rpms available, they're often redhat/fedora and SuSE ones (plus 9.3 has KDE 3.4 as standard, 2005LE doesn't).

I also found this at linuxformat

dunno if it'll help though - someone else said that the installer seems to be a little sensitive to some hardware settings, though I didn't work out which ones!

regards

John

well... ive been working on this for pretty much a day straight by listening to advice on the internet... each one sounds like it might work, but try after try, i get that same error... i know that my hardware is good... i am pretty sure that the data i got downloaded is good... im lost as of now...

Well you might post some of your system specs, someone with considerably more knowledge might spot something.

Also, if you still have the download isos' then you could try checking the md5sums - corrupted iso images are one of the "old cherrys'" when it comes to installing distros that've been downloaded. the md5sums are what? 15 maybe 20 characters long, and you'd only need 1 incorrect character and it potentially causes these kind of problems.

Don't forget if this is your first "go" at linux, you're at the bottom of the learning curve and you could easily try different distros - that said, I have mainly been mandrake/mandriva based since I started, but I recently wanted to see what all the fuss was about with KDE 3.4 (mandriva 2005LE uses 3.3), so I just got a mate to burn a copy of the discs that he'd got installed (SuSE 9.3) to try. It's quite similar in what it can do by default, but some things are done differently e.g. the package manager works differently etc.

A quick search would find you plenty of places that can sell you "cheap" discs (they'll be download versions that have been verified as OK and burned).

I suggest this, because the only discs I've ever had problems with have been ones that I've burned myself (under linux), but that's probably because I don't know how to use the apps properly.

Another place to look is "Mandriva Users" they don't tend to answer as quickly as you get here at LQ, but LQ is considerably bigger. maybe something there????

OK, I've just had a quick look at mandrivausers and it all points toward either a bad download or a bad burn. Apparently the hdlist is the headers list for rpms (the packages it needs to install are in "rpm" format - a mandrivised version thats different from redhat/fedora or SuSE versions), so that would explain why it stops where it does, the installer doesn't know what or where to install next.

I know it's a pisser to have to redownload, but if you get the image and the md5sum for each file, you can either try the md5summer app I suggested if you've only windows, or if you already have a linux install, you can also just move to which ever directory you downloaded the iso to and then do md5sum (name of downloaded file - but without the brackets) and hit enter, a couple of minutes later it should chuck out the md5sum number for you to compare.

So sorry to be the bringer of crap news but everything points in that direction (and yes, even if I rev my connection to 2 megs, it still takes me about 2 hours per iso to download the little suckaz!).

Maybe that helps some ?

regards

John

p.s. also don't know how much "cheap" discs will cost in your part of the US, but last time I got some (gentoo linux), it was 2 quid including the postage (about 5$'s or so). You'd have to surf for the nearest supplier - Sorry!

I got this problem it has nothing to do with the iso.
Just after you formated and get this error message press ctrl alt del it will restart the install. Then rechoose your language and all that stuff and when you get back to the partitionning tool don't modify the partitions, just choose "use an existing partition" then pick up the partition you created with the tool and install mandriva