I have now tried upgrading from the following version of Mandriva/Mandrake:
10.1 to 2006. This failed and I had to install 2006 fresh
2006 to 2007. This also failed. Tried fresh install of 2007, but there were too many bugs in the software I was using so I went back to 2006.
2006 to 2008. Still doesn't work, and I am having more problems than I have ever had... I am pretty frustrated that it seems so difficult to upgrade from on eversion of Mandriva to another (I am doing this using 64 bit version). Granted, by the time I upgrade, I have a lot of software and services installed, and I am not sure if this if why. This makes it even more important to me to be able to upgrade..

Anyway, this is the error(s) I am now getting:

The first time it didn't work, I tried installing it again without ACPI enabled since I saw some warnings on that.
The second time around I get this:
I first got an error when starting the anacron daemon, so I disabled it at run level 5. It still didn't work.
I then disabled haldaemon, but that didn't work either
I didn't see any point in continuing disabling services since it didn't seem to work.

I then tried booting to Safemode, but there were even a lot of errors in this mode. I see some errors when trying to load the cdrom which is on hdc. I see errors "0x51" and "0x40".
I then see:
localhost perl: guess_geometry_from_partition_table_hda:19457/255/63
localhost perl:is_geometry_valid_for_the_partition_table failed for (hda2.....)

There are similar errors for hdc (cdrom):
localhost service_harddrake[5130]:removed burner:hdd
localhost service_harddrake[5130]:removed burner:hdd
localhost service_harddrake[5130]:run "/usr/sbin/drakupdate_fstab --no-flag --del hdd

Seems like there are some problems with mounting the ide devices. I have 3 hard drives, but ide and CD/dvd player, and multiple installations so I probably don't have a typical install. However, it is still a little frustrating that I am having so many problems when upgrading. Any suggestions on what the problem might be, or at least how to get started?
I have never had any luck upgrading Mandriva, are there anyone else who has had any success? I will most certainly pay for their version until they get all their bugs straightened out.
Thanks

I generally find I have better success upgrading via the web from commandline rather than from the cd/dvd.

As long as you have internet access you should be able to do the following:

Go to here: http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ change the architecture to x86_64 then follow the steps to choose your required repositories. Before adding the new locations as root run this command urpmi.removemedia -a to remove your old repositories, then copy and paste the new list (or type them in by hand) to your konsole (if you use the copy and paste method you will need to press return for the last entry to be added), then do: urpmi.update -a && urpmi --auto-select --auto, this will make sure the urpmi database is up to date then select the packages required for upgrade and finally do the upgrade.

Upgrading from 2006 to 2008 is a bit of a jump and could potentially fail. As with using any other method make sure you have any important data backed up.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have updated the media before, but I have not done a version upgrade as I thought that seemed a little risky. After you have updated the media, how do you actually do the upgrade?

I agree that going from 2006 to 2008is a bit of a jump, but since I had too many problems when I upgraded to 2007, I went back to 2006. During the 'upgrade' there was a message saying that it was not recommended to skip more than to releases. Since I was going from 2006 to 008 I thought I was safe. At this point it will be easiest to just do a clean install and hope that everything works. I got a hold of an old machine that I think will server as my test machine from now on when I am doing stuff like this...

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have not done very many successful upgrades with Mandriva, much less the 64 bit versions. I have used Mandriva since Mandrake 6.0, running most of the betas and RC's over the years. Do a clean install with version changes.

A fresh install is the better option but not always the most convenient, especially when you have a lot of custom apps installed! If I want to test the install from dvd I use virtualbox. To do the upgrade itself just run urpmi --auto-select --auto as root.