HELP! Need Installation Help

mandy · 11-10-2004, 09:40 PM

I've been trying to load Mandrake 10.1 for some time now. It won't self boot. I need someone to tell me what is wrong and what I can do to load this on my computer. I ran across something on the net telling me to make a boot disk then insert the LInux CD and Floppy in and then restart the computer .. I followed the instructions only to find out that the file was too large for a floppy.. so that won't work. I know it's not the disks since this is the second set I've bought. Can anyone help me solve this mystery?

Thanks!

mscole · 11-10-2004, 09:59 PM

Have you checked your bios setup to see if it is set to boot from CD?

ctux · 11-11-2004, 03:56 AM

Yep, check your bios

At Startup, Press Supr or F10 (depending of the machine) and you'll be in the bios conf. You shoud search there and find something that's the order for booting that shoud be somenthing like a:\, c:\, SCSI , you have to change it and put de CD-ROM the first one

good luck

mandy · 11-11-2004, 08:00 AM

Yes, the boot sequence is set correctly. First boot is the CD-Rom, second is the floppy and next is the hard drive. However, when I put in the CD and start my computer it automatically goes right to the hard drive. I'm sure you're going to ask if my CD-Rom is working.... Yes it is. I can open up any other CD with it and can load my Win ME software with it, but the Mandrake software will not load at all. The CD-rom doesn't even try to boot it. It just sits there.

Any other suggestions?

mscole · 11-11-2004, 08:53 AM

I would try changing the boot sequence to floppy, cd-rom, hard drive. This is just a guess, but your cd-rom drive may need a few extra seconds to spin up to speed before your bios tries to boot off it. Can you boot from a floppy?
Mike.

mandy · 11-11-2004, 09:22 AM

Yes, I can boot from a floppy...I've already tried changing the boot sequence and still nothing happens.

mscole · 11-11-2004, 09:38 AM

Ok, the cd-rom has me stumped, but you should be able to make a boot floppy. There should be a zipped kernel somewhere on your installation cd's that will fit on a floppy. Sorry to say I have no experience with Mandrake, but many distro's have scripts on one of the install cd's that automatically make a boot floppy. Also, look for an iso floppy boot image on the cd's or on Mandrake's web page that you can write directly to disk with dd in Linux, or rawrite.exe in Windows/DOS.
Mike.