I have been trying to dual-boot Win XP Home and Mandrake 7.1 on my Dell Dimension 4600. I got the grub bootloader working properly and all but whenever i try to boot Linux, i get "hdb: irq probe failed" and later, "hda:lost interrupt" at "partition check". And needless to say, it just repeatedly says "hda:lost interrupt" until I get bored and reboot. Can somebody pleese help me out?

I might not have partitioned my drive right because im a complete newbie at this. Can someone give me the correct steps to a "perfect" dualboot installation with Madrake 7.1 and Win XP home? (got XP installed on 30gigs out of a total 40gig......booting linux from cd)

My system:
Dell Dimension 4600
P4 hyperthreading 2.4ghz
40gig maxtor hd (dunno exactly)
nvidia geforce 5200 128mb

Your trying to installl Mandrake 7.1...
On a 2.4Ghz Hyperthreading P4!!!


My god, I do believe you are completely insane.

Anyway.

Mr.

Go get/download/purchase a more up to date distro to dual boot the system with and try that again. You should be using at least a 9.0+ release if not the newest 10.0.

Better yet, go pick something like SuSe or Redhat so that you have a decent running system when your done with good software selections...

P.S.
Don't give me none of this.. "But I can't download/afford a newer copy of BLAHBLAH distro"

Last time I paid for a distro on cd it cost a whole 3 dollars for all 5 cd's. There are plenty of cheap redistributor places out there.

Why don't you just stop pussy-footing about and just come out and say what you really think? I must admit there's truth in what you say about cheap CD's. With prices so low and the quality so high it's foolish not to try them all. If you live in the UK the postage is cheap and fast from http://www.maxtux.co.uk/ . Enjoy.