Hi, ive been wanting to give linux a try for ages now, but am not having any joy with installing it.

I only have one hard drive, so am gonna try and dualboot windows xp pro and kubuntu 6.06 (i think thts th number). I have managed to install kubuntu on this hard disk already, but it wouldnt load up (after the grub bit). So i wiped everything (including xp) with th intention of starting again, but it just keeps doing one of 3 things) it says:
'timeout waiting for DMA' and nothing
'timeout waiting for DMA' and does a few little checks thn says its timed out again, or
'does something, then progresses to a black screen, with an 'x' shaped cursor (which is either moveable or just stays in th middle of th screen)

th hard drive has been recently formatted (full low level format) can any one help me please ?

plus, can someone point me in th direction of a site which that shows how to dual boot xp pro and kubuntu. (when i installed linux before, it wouldnt let me chose to boot into windows even though it was on a seperate hard disk (that borke) nor would it boot linux either )

thanks for any help
Welshy

At exactly what step did this occur? eg, when attempting to boot Windows CD, running Windows installer, etc....?

The standard drill for dual-boot is something like this:

1. Install Windows with a partition of ~10-15GB. Leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned.
2. Install Linux. Create a ~7GB partition---+swap--and leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned. During install, allow the Linux installer to put the bootloader on the mbr. It will automatically setup the config file to boot Windows.

cheers pixellany here's more on what's happening.

It was coming up with that when i was trying to boot th linux install disk.

Windows has its own errors. Th pc starts up, says: press any key to boot from CD, so i do, then it inspects the hardware configuration, then th blue screen comes up. Its really strange, because it loads about 30 / 40 things before th menu to install it comes up, but th first time i tried to install it afresh yesterday, it would load all of them, get to the menu, then freeze upon copying files to the hard drive, 2nd time, would not quite finish loading all the 30 or so things, 3rd time, bout 25, fourth even less, and now it just stops at the kernel debugger dll, and says something about erroe 14, and failed to load something. It cant be the cd, a) cos it does the same with 3 seperate XP pro discs, and b) would it not stop at the smae place everytime?

this is soooo furstrating now, cos neither XP or Linux will install.

(p.s. it seems to be fine on my bros p.c, if i put my hard drive in there, itll load th linux live cd up no problem, as it did 1st time on my pc) and i would try and install it on the hard drive in his pc, then just put th hard drive in my pc, but im guessing that this would just screw it up, and not work, and therefore be a further waste of time. (his is an intel p4, mines a amd 3000 one)

thanks again
welshy

(p.s. sorry for all th essays)

i've just now ran the hard drive test from th manufacturer's website (maxtor) and apparantly the hard drive is failing, so i take it that this is the reason for everything

Welshy,
If neither windows nor ubuntu will boot (and this disks work on your brother's computer) you probably have a hardware problem with your PC. Those windows errors may mean something - write them down exactly, and try googling for what they might mean.
You could also: Take your case apart. De-dust everything. Make sure all cards are mounted securely. Same for all the cables.
Re-assemble and try again. Does your PC have a hardware-diagnostics disk? Try that.
Also, on the ubuntu CD boot-screen there's an option to run memtest86 - try that for a couple of hours.
Edit You just beat me to it - & it seems you have found the problem. De-dust while you are changing the drive.

If I am setting up a system and the hard drive has many miles on it, I would generally just put in a new drive up front. Pretty cheap insurance.

after about a billion attempts ive finally got linux installed on th p4 machine, wouldnt installl on th AMD machine, and windows wouldnt install on anything, kept sayin it couldnt find the last 25%-or-so of the files it copies, so is pretty rubbish on the whole. will give this kubuntu thing a go, but am about 250% fed up with everythng at th mo.
cheers for ur help
welshy