Hey!!

I finally took the plunge and decided to give Linux a shot. I have been a hard core M$ user for almost 10 years, but after reading reviews and news groups I decided to take the plunge and install Mandrake 9.1

I downloaded the 3 ISO's and burned em...no problems...after booting the install starts and gets to @16 minutes and then it hangs up . After 3 more attempts I thought that maybe I had a bad ISO ( CD 1 ), so I re-downloaded and tried it again, but it still hangs up.... Im really looking forward to switching to Linux, but first I have to get through this install problem.

Any help or suggestions that you can give me will really be appreciated!!

TIA

Tews

PS... Here's my config..

P4 2.10GHZ
VIA 4X286 Mobo
365MB DDR2100 Ram
Nvidia Gforce 200MMX
40GB Maxtor HD
80GB Maxtor HD
Lite-On LTR 1610B CDRW
Lynksys 10/100 NIC
AC97 Onboard Sound Card
Sony 18' LCD Flat Screen Monitor

did you check the md5sum on your iso's? there should be instructions on your download site.

at what point does it hang? can you give more info on where you got to?

and, of course, welcome to LQ

Thanks for the quick reply XavierP !

I downloaded the ISO's from MandrakeSoft.com and figured that would be the best place to get em. As far as the checksum I have no idea how to do that .. any advice on that problem??
The install goes just fine up to a point. It starts out, asks the few install questions ( partition, Security options etc. etc. ) then starts the actual install. It goes from the initial start. The progress bar decends from @50 minutes to 16 minutes left. This is still on CD 1, it doesn't get to CD2 yet. This is where it stalls out, eventually freezing up! Any thoughts... Im quickly going insane!!!

Tews

I had a similar problem with Red Hat, It would hang at the same spot every time during the install. It turned out to be the read laser in the CDRW was going out and it was having trouble with the CD.

I hope that is not your problem but it is an easy fix.

Check your burn. I had similar problems when installing Mandrake 8.1. Everything went well, but then it just hung up. It turns out I had a bad burn.

I agree, having also had a similar problem awhile back. If you have a friend with a CD burner, ask him/her to do it for you. If not, try burning the disc at a slower speed (i. e., if you usually burn at 16x, try 12x).

Check http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/verifyiso.html for instructions on how to verify if your ISO's downloaded OK.

Ales

Hi...

I checked the MD5sum and they all checked out. I have a new burner and still no luck... Ive decided to try Slackware and see if it installs.

Thanks

Q. Tews