i have mandrake 9.1. i am trying to make a boot cd, as my system has no floppie

Did you download an ISO? Did you Buy MD9.1?

A bit more info pls.

i downloaded

what do you have in mind by a boot CD?
If you want a CD that you can use to do some emergency repair work in case something goes wrong, your installation CD can do it. Boot from CD, presss F1 and then type rescue (I think this is the way to do it; press F1 and you'll get the options on the screen and rescus is one of them).

i am just trying to install and use linux. i go thru a lengthy install process, but i never can use linux.

could you be more precise about the problem? When you start your computer, do you get a menu where you can choose to boot linux (and other os if there are any on your system)?
If yes, what happens when you choose to boot linux?
If No, what happens? Just a blank screen at startup, or boot straight into another OS like windows? something different?

when i start it just goes to windows as it did before i tried to use linux.

looks like you didn't install the bootloader or you didn't install it in the MBR of the disk. It should be pretty easy to fix though. Put in the installation CD, press F1 and then type rescue (I believe this is what you need to type - read the instructions on the screen you get when you press F1). You will get to a prompt. Type
lilo -v
and then hit enter. It will tell you what it's doing. If you get error messages, write them down and post them here. If all goes well, you should get a boot menu after reboot. Check if you can boot windows and also linux.

thanks quatsch! MBR was the key. i re-installed and saved the bootloader in the MBR and all is well for both os's.