I have just received a copy of Mandrake Linux 9.1 and have been trying to install it onto my new system which I have already installed Windows XP onto. While trying to install Linux the setup gets to the checking partition phase and then gives an IN interupt handler- not syncing message and then locks. I have tried to install in the expert mode also but the installer gives the same message. I have an athon 1.6G processor, a 40G hdd partitioned as 30g for Windows and 10G for Linux, an Nvida 32MB video card and 256mg of RAM. Help is appreciated.

hi,
If you can try and get a copy of "partitionmagic 7.0/8.0" by powerquest as i've installed many a time on different machines with all flavours of windows and found this one to be the best at it!!


Lets say you have a 20/30/40/4.3!! gb drive (it doesn't matter)
Anyway devide the drive up into 2 partitions first (say 10gb+10gb)
Then on the second partition create the space you need for linux to run (it will automatically make the neccessary swap file needed by linux) and then install linux on this partition (and make sure you put lilo on the first section of the drive and NOT onto the MBR- Master boot record) Then install "bootmagic" (it comes with Partitionmagic) and follow the instructions and "add" linux to the boot menu and "enable" it

Job done! when you next boot up you will have a choice of Windows xp / or Linux

Hope this helps!!

hello,

thanks for the suggestion about partitionmagic. I was reading a few websites about the problem and was not sure if this would solve my problem or not. I will let you know if this does solve the issue with the installation.

Thanks,
Dakota