my introduction
 

Hello to everyone out there! As you will probably be able to tell I am new to Linux but eager to learn. I have used the mandriva distro 2006 and I found it good and was wondering whether there are any other distro's that would be good to try. I say this as two days after installing it on my laptop, the hard drive failed and I lost everything! Anyway, i am looking for another way to get into linux and this forum seems like a good place to start.

Hi and welcome to LQ :D If you do a search for "best distro" you will see many many opinions on what to try. Personally, I say try as many as you can and make an informed decision on what's best for you.