I have tried now a couple of times to install ManDrake 9.1 which I have downloaded. I have done a checksum test and the downloaded file is the correct one.

When I install i only get to the first screen then when i press enter for the first time i get a message on the screen saying

"Please Wait..."
"Trying to access Mandrake Linux CDROM disc.
(Drive SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-408B) "

and then nothing else happens !!

What could bee the problem ?? I have already tried to burn another copy but its the same with that one ??

What am I doing wrong ??

How long did you wait for it to access your drive?
and if you have two drives, you're sure the CD was in your CD-RW?

And finally, are you trying to boot off the CD?

I waited about 2-3 min and yes i have two drives and yes it was in the CD-RW drive

Yes, im booting from the cd. I changed the Boot sequenc in BIOS so it will boot from the cd...

did you try your other drive? if so does it do the same thing?

No i havent tried it. Its my dVD player and it doenst show up in BOis as an alternative boot source.....

The thing is that it starts to read when the first screen appears but when it should "trying to access it" it just stops.

I found a idea on another forum

At the installation start screen press F1 and type

linuxe ide=nodma

could this solve my problem ???

you might want to check the peripherals section of your bios and make sure the cd-rom is a bootable device.

What exactly do you mean ?

What should i do and how??

The cd-rom is in the list over bootable devices in the BIOS isnt that enough ??

I installed MDK 9.1 (again...) this morning and i looked for what you were talking about. I saw it, (surprise...) right before it loads the installer into your ram. Your CD-rom works well enough in normal operation? It doesn't make sense that it stops working when you try to load mandrake from it. Sorry this is beyond my technical knowledge.

Yes i have never ever had any problems with my CD-rom, It works perfect and never have I had any problems burning stuff either...

Fot how long did it show that message when u installed it Scius?
Maybe I havent been waiting long enough...i waited for about 2-3 min...

Hasnt anyone ran into this problem ?? Im stuck! should i try this ide=nodma or can it mess up my system....

I also want to have a dual boot ? Will it be fixed during the installation or ??

When you start your boot sequence, the first page (where you F1 or delete - or whatever) to access the bios, it normally has a list of pieces of kit i.e. primary master (often the hard drive and gives details of the HDD) primary slave (in my case I think it's the cdrw) secondary master (my dvd) secondary slave not used.

If you then F1/delete/whatever to look at the bios, It should then give the order in which it looks for boot devices i.e. a/b/c/d/etc etc that should translate to floppy/harddrive/cdrw/dvd - except whatever order you tell it (that's if you have changed it otherwise it will tell you the default - what it was set on from the manufacturer).

You say that you did the checksum to make sure you downloaded disc's are OK, so maybe you should just try and change the bios so it looks at your cdrom/cdrw device first. Then (well, in theory) provided the disc's are ok, it SHOULD boot from the first disc.

IF, you get it started, just accept the default's, for the partition bit, if you have any free space on your hdd, select that to install the mandrake - if not, tell it to resize the windows partition (I haven't had to do this as I already had space free'd up) I think it should give you instructions to follow.

also, presuming that you have a windows disc, then try the nodma thing. If the system did f**k up, then the worst case scenario would be re-install windows first - all you have wasted then is time.

Sorry If you already tried this - I only know the basic things to try.

Good luck

regards

John