Newbie stress call.

I've got my girlfriends PC literally in bits. Tried to install MDK9.2 but it just does not want to know. I have tried at least half a dozen installs. Previous posting (Newbie forum) suggests that it may be related to Graph/Vid card?

I wanted to swap the card - but there aint one in a slot, so assuming that its built into the board - ging into BIOS does not suggest there is a free standing one either. Followed suggestions in responses butr nothing works.

Anyway, me and a mate took out a couple of components (ethernet card etc) hoping also that it might be a conflict somewhere else. Nuthin. MDK does not want to know. It installs, but will not reboot to allow access to the desktop environment. Bobbins.

Anyway, I'm gonna put her PC back together again tonite, and give it one more whirl. If this fails *again* then I'll need to reinstall Win98 trouble is I don't know how, because i totally wiped Win in favour of mdk - anybody got Step by step procedures to get back to Win if needed?

On a more +ve note, an old door stop machine was installed with the MDK9.2 (so I know my box disks are fine - though it took hours to install and changing settings takes an absolute age!) - I initially had some problems with not being able to read fonts after the first boot up (they were the size of pin heads). The secret was that the machine was so old, I needed an adaptor to fit a keyboard with a PS2 fitting. I mixed up the keyboard and mouse fittings and only discovered this by chance. Now I have a delightful desktop environment - the aim is to *eventually* and hopefully use this to network 2 home PCs.

I'll be attempting to install the drake on my own machine tonite - but I've a dusty ol' 1Gb HDD to test out the install - if it fails, then I'll put dirty windoz HDD back in - if it works, windoz gets the boot, though I cant imagine both mine and girlfriends computa guts on the table with only a doorstop to practice on!

well...first try to boot from windows install cd, choose to boot machine with cd-support, and try to run fdisk - if it sees your drives, wipe 'em out and do new ones, start windows installation and you should be fine. but if fdisk won't see your linux partition(s), as might well be, get a working linux system/bootdisk/live-cd and start linux's fdisk (for example) and wipe the drives out with it - then use windows fdisk to re-create partition(s). and install. shouldn't be too tough, I guess....

the problem with windows's fdisk is that it won't necessarily recognize your linux partition(s) but it's not a problem, if you can start a linux installation, say from Mandrake's discs, the setup program should give you a choise to partition the disc either manually or automaticallly - when it does, choose "manually", and with the program provided, just remove all the partitions. after this, reboot with windows install cd, boot computer with cd-support, run windows's fdisk from the cd (just fdisk to the command prompt you get should do?) and create the needed partition(s) you wish...set the first active and reboot and install.

b0uncer - many thanx for this.

Seems that it may not be as straight forward as hoped, but I'll follow your advice and hope I can get there.

Cheers.

here is a page originally posted for fun, but it may be what you need...