Ahhhh crap.

OK, here's the deal. I am a programmer specifically focused on Java. I've been doing a lot of work in PHP/MySQL lately and have been working on web development for about 7 years, mostly working in Perl. Given my Perl background and it going back to before NT support of Perl was widely recognized you can probably figure I've been working on Apache servers.

After playing around with those for a long time I decided to try Linux at home so I could get a bit more used to it and basically expand my horizons. So I took an older computer of mine (specs are something like 300 mhz, 7ghz HD, 128 Ram, etc) and decided to install Mandrake on there. I had used XP on there for a while and it was running fine until I tried to install an ethernet. Something messed up and it wouldn't load but this was right after I had bought my new computer so I put it aside and just never got back to it. So it's been sitting there for a while.

I tried tonight to install Windows XP first, to clean out the system. It would boot to the Compaq screen and then go black. I figured I would just clean it out with the Mandrake install and tossed in that disc (9.2). It started installing and things looked good. After a while a problem came up and it offered solutions, including wiping out the Win install. I didn't need anything from there so I choose to do that. It went a bit longer and more errors started popping up.

At this point everytime I turn on the computer it loads to show the Compaq sign and then shows "Error loading operating system".

I've been trying what I can but no luck. I don't need to save anything on this computer and just want to get something going so I can install Mandrake. I do not have a boot disc (I'm on XP for this computer, XP for that computer, XP for my other computer and everything else is retired). I would be fine with installing another operating system to resolve this problem (if that would help) and have, besides my Mandrake 9.2 install, Win XP, 2000 and even that God aweful ME crap.

Any recommendations on an easy way to fix this? Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks to anyone that can help.

To make it easy on you why don't you through in a maxtor floopy or some one elses and just reformat the entire hard drive and then see if you can install mandrake and get a clean install. If I misunderstood the question sorry about that but I would start there.

Actually I'm thinking, and God was I an idiot not to think of this last night, is that when I get home I'll try getting into BIOS and setting it up to boot from the CD. That should let me bypass the extra crap and I can just use the Mandrake CD from there.

Make sense or does anyone see a major hole in my logic?