I tryed to install linux mandrake 6.(whatever) on my computer. i used disk druid during setup to partition my hard drives.

mount point info
-------------------------
/ 250 Mb on a 340 mb hd
/usr 450 Mb on a 540 mb hd
swap part. 50 Mb on the 540 mb hd

it told me that i did not have enough space for what i chose so i went back to the partition part of the install. i installed it then when it tried to set up my hardware it coame into problems so i had to reboot. do you think it destroyed my harddrive by not unmounting it correctly?
please tell me what could have happend.

You should try this partition setup:

swap 50mb
/boot 16mb
/ fill up rest of hard disk.

See what you get if you try an install with that.

I appreciate the reply. i just want to know how it could have done that to my hd though. i installed linux on my remaining hd like you recommended and it works pretty good.

right now i just think that by rebooting during the installation could haved screwed the hard drive by not unmounting.

could this be possible?

can i trust linux?

I wouldn't think so. Maybe the formatting of the drive have been wrecked but that should be "repaired" during next installation since linux formats the drives.

You can always trust Linux!!!!!!

that's the problem though. i installed it again amaybe once or twice after that, getting a "Failed" error when mounting the hd. then i used a dos startup disk and partitioned the hd once more. when i formatted it it said "Track 0 bad or invaled media" or something "disk unusable".

just so i can feel safe, can someone reccomend exactly what program i should use and what i should do when i partition my hd for linux. i've heard of partition magic...



just want to be safe :)

Thanks for your help, i decided to use linux fdisk instead of disk druid during installation. it seemed more reliable than disk druid.

i think uuge was right about the formatting of that drive being messed up because the very first time i installed linux, the installation went weird(could have been my fault)

for now, i am going to use windhos 95:( until i get a bigger hd

thanks again for your support;)

Your hd broke? Sometimes msdos fdisk can solve this when called with the /mbr option.
a:\fdisk /mbr