I'm really sorry, I know that there has been countless posts before this one concerning this issue, believe me I've been scouring the boards for the last 2 hours. I still don't get it though, I am obviously a linux newbie, but the most I've gotten out of previous posts is that I have to disable PnP, this is a problem since I have no enable/disable PnP option in my bios. I am using a presario 2500 series, 2.3 p4 512 ram 40g hd, so i'm sure my requirements aren't the problem. The installation runs smoothly until after I get past the mouse. It says detecting pcmia etc.. and then says Installing driver for IEEE 1394 Bus host Controllers - Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant etc...Then it complete freezes and I have to cold restart. The BIOS is PhoenixBios System..Can anyone give me advice on how to fix/bypass this so I can install this? I have been wanting to run this OS for a while. Any Help is greatly appreciated!!!!!

-John

Standard troubleshooting techniques would dictate that we make something work at all, and ony then try to make it work perfiectly.

So, the first goal is to make it work at all. Your IEEE 1394 controller, is it onboard? If so, even though you will eventually want and need it, can you turn it off in BIOS to see if the problem goes away? The IEEE 1394 Bus Host Controller is the key, I think that means it is a motherboard issue. Try turning it off. Limit the variables. You've already succeeded in recreating the problem. Now concentrate on isolating it and theeeeeeen solving it.

If you have a device connected to it (Something from the fine folks at Texas Insrtuments?) then maybe you could just disconnect the device while it installs. That way you could further isolate the problem so you could continue on in your noble effort to shut the Windows.

Just another Newbie trying to offer constructive suggestions. Incidentally, I never could get Mandrake 9.2 to load. It gave me many error messages about "error reading package. . ." I swapped everything except my motherboard and proc, and never could resolve it.

Best of luck!
Robert

yeah, I've thought about that, but I can't disable anything onboard in BIOS. The only thing I have the ability to disable is my Legacy USB support blah blah..and I thought from reading other posts that might help, but it made no difference at all. I was reading another post on a message board, and they said something along the lines of changing the boot parameters or something having to do with "sending nopcmcia" but I have no clue where to set them, or where to type "nopcmcia" it makes sense to me because it sounds like it's a command to not load my pcmcia the problem i'm having is finding out how to disable it so I can finish the installation. Also if mandrake isn't worth this much trouble could someone suggest another newbie friendly linux OS. I'm thinking of trying redhat or maybe slackware but I'm still unsure.

Again Thank you.

Fedora Core 1 installed on the first try without any errors. It looks beautiful.

To use the nopcmcia thingy, you enter it from a command line. One of the first options during install of Mandrake 9.2 is f1 for help, or something like that. If you press f1, and read the directions, you can "pass commands directly to the kernel" or something like that. I believe you type: linux nopcmcia and hit the ol' enter key. I think that does it.

What terrifies me, is that I'M giving someone advice on Linux. Good luck.
Robert