Installing RedHat 9 over Mandrake 9.2
 

I recently decided i wanted to use RedHat 9 over mandrke 9.2, I formated the mandrake partition, then deleted it (i run a dual boot, so i resized the windowsXP partition to utilize the entire drive). I then partitioned off space during the redhat install, and installed redhat, it installed succesfully, but i rebooted to the Mandrake 9.2 bootloader, i even tried booting to linux but it failed. im looking now on how to just delete the mandrake 9.2 bootloader and hoping that the RedHat bootloader will take over. am i nieve? any sudgestions on what i should do would be great, still learning linux, so im not very good.

What I would do is:
(optional, but nice belt-and-braces approach) stick in a windows boot disk and boot from it. At the command line, type in fdisk /mbr, this will clear the boot loader entirely.

Then boot from the RH disk and start the install as normal. When you get to the boot loader part, install lilo or grub and accept those settings. Then cancel the install and boot from the hd. All should then be well.

yea i just saw a site that said to fdisk /MRB to get rid of the bootloader. if a mandrake 9.2 bootloader exsisted at the time of the RedHat installation would it not install lilo or grub? (it prompted me, and i choose lilo). also, can i do the "fdisk /MBR" from the cmd in windows xp? or do i need to boot it from a CD and use that command line?

It should overwrite the existing boot loader with the new one, but it appears to not work that way in every case.

the fdisk command is giving me a "bad command error"

umm... sudgestions?

was the prompt a: or c:? To switch to the foppy drive, type a: and then do 'fdisk /mbr' with the space in between and with the ' at either end.

yea i tried in C: and A:

and i typed help, and fdisk wasnt in the list of commands

If you have a standard windows bootdisk (created from 95 or 98 or from a bootdisk website) then you need to switch to a:.

Try downloading from http://putergeek.com/downloads/ - I've used the disks and never had a problem with them.

im using XP (specified in initial post), will a 95/98 bootdisk work? if i remember correctly they are built on DOS and XP is not. im using a repair/recovery console to get to the command line.

I've never had a problem using a dos disk on an NTFS partition.

the disk from putergeek.com worked perfectly. however when i tried to upgrade Redhat (to install the bootloader) it said there was no changes made to the kernal (mabye because i did an everything install) so the boot configuration will remain the same, even though i chose to install a new bootloader (lilu). i may just have to reinstall it. but either way the mandrake bootloader is out and im pretty sure i can get Lilu in

Of both distributions

Redhat has gone commercial in addition to its Fedora opensource project.

Redhat is making a fair amount of money

I don't know if Mandrake is doing quite as hot, but if its not . . .
Maybe its just me, but somehow I think there's a reason for that.

I suppose Redhat must appeal to the common man more who doesn't have a lot of time to learn Linux keyboard interface commands or spend excessive time re-learning tricks he learned with Windows.