install mandrake on laptop
 

i just downloaded the 3 mandrake 9.2 iso images.i unzipped the files and burnt them to cd .the mandrake install window appears when i insert cd 1 ,and when i click install the computer reboots but just restarts normally [i thought it was supposed to automatically create a partition]
anyways i have never used linux before at all. i just obtained partition magic 8.0 on hopes of having both xp and linux os on the same computer but i have not done anything yet except burn images to cd .

i have xp home on a new 1.6 p4 toshiba laptop with ati 16 mb ddr videocard could someone be nice enough to e-mail me a detailed step by step instructions begining to end ,on how to carry out this install ? i have never done this before.

any help would be appreciated
al

I'm not going to email you about this, sorry. Mandrake, along with any other OS, isn' going to "automatically" set partitions for you, as there's no way for an OS to be psychic. Sorry, I don't mean to be mean. Also, you don't need partition magic with Mandrake 9.2, as Linux now supports NTFS.

I haven't had your problem yet, but perhaps a little more info may help. What exactly happens, at what point do you reboot (what's the last item you see before it restarts), and does switching to "text mode" (an option every linux version has, it's like a DOS menu-type install).

info requested
 

al here, when i put cd 1 in the laptop the mandrake install window appears on the desktop it has a few options in the window i do not see a text option in that window,then i click the install icon . then it states a message that it is going to reboot computer and to save dave data before reboot [this is the last item i see before reboot]
.so it does reboot computer but reboots normally and no part of install takes place ,my computer is configured to boot from cd ,just the regular xp prompts appear [enter the bios or boot from cd]no trace of mandrake install is present during start up.

i have 2 powerquest products since partitionmagic is not needed should i also uninstall drive image 2002 also ?

If the cd is in the drive when you boot up the computer and yet it boots straight into Windows then I really don't think you do have it set to boot from the cd at all. I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't boot from the install cd otherwise. Check your bios settings again.

checked bios
 

yes i have checked bios settings and i have used the force boot from cd option before with my system restore disks and it works then and it works now .the computer seems to look for data on the disk but when it cant find it seems to just boot normally.maybe something is missing from the iso images?is there a way too check if all files necessary are present also could file assosiation cause problems ?when i view the unzipped files [ex mandrakemove.iso the files on the cd show as a microsoft office clip board files] to decompress these files i am using winiso5.3 maybe i am not decompressing the files properly?

Your windows cd-burning software should recognise the .iso as a disc image, and burn a cd for you directly from the image. It sounds as though you haven't got all the data on to the disc.

thats possible
 

that could be the problem ,at first i burnt the iso images directly with the cd burning software and tried the disks and then i decompressed the images using winiso 5.3 and burnt them to cd and tried again and still no difference .

Perhaps try your Mandrake disk 1 on someone else's machine. At least it will tell you if the disks are bad. Otherwise, I can only recommend that you try a different distro -- say red hat. Download it from

ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.red...9/en/iso/i386/

or your closest mirror. Do some reading from the guide first:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/

You can learn about partitioning etc from here. If you have just one harddrive and one partition on that drive, you may need to use partition magic first to shrink the windows partition (as you seem to realise). If you have a second drive, however, you can dive straight in with the install, once you've got any important data off of the second drive (and you've read the manual).

Best

I

downloading files
 

i am downloading the files you suggested do these iso type of files need to be extracted before burning to cd?a previuos response said that no i do not have to extract the files, have you found this to be true?"

That's right. I strongly recommend that you don't extract them.

When I first installed rh, and I was still running win98, I used Roxio Easy CD Creator to burn the CDs. You may find that you can just double-click an .iso file, and it will lauch your CD burning software all ready to burn the image. If you can't, just check out the documentation that comes with your burning software for how to deal with .iso files.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

Ian

bein safe
 

there was additional iso files in the ftp you suggested i am downloading all 7 of these files are all of these files related to the os or do i just need the 3 iso files [downloading everything just to be safe]

You only need the i386 files, *not* the SRPMS. Sorry I didn't mention that!!!

may have thought
 

i decided to find out what you had previously had told me about cd burning software it looks like i am supposed to burn the disks using the record cd from cd image option in roxio cd creator.i did not know this previuosly i thought you had to use decompression software or copy the iso to disk it looks like i had just been burning disks improperly.oh well you live you learn.i will try burning the disks properly and see what happens.i guess if you dont select this option the cd is not burnt correctly