I am currently in the process of trying to install Mandrake 10.1 on my laptop and keep getting an error message when I try to resize my partition (80gb HDD) saying that there are bad sectors and that this problem is not supported yet by Mandrake. I have tried running the usual windows (gasp) utlities to try to fix this problem but have had no luck. Any advice on what I should do? I've been thinking about using a partitioning tool such as partition magic before I start the install agian, but I'm not sure if this will help much. Any help would be appreciated!

In your shoes I would.

Use a drive manufacturer's utility to ZERO the drive out.

E.g. if your machine has a WD drive, then get the one from Western Digital (free download).

The run Spinright 6 on the drive to test it for bad sectors.

Spinright 6 boots from a floppy.

Once done perform an installation.

It is likely that either the drive is reporting erroneous layout info to Mandrake, which the zeroing out will help to cure, or that the sector errors are real.

If Spinright cannot eliminate the bad sectors, you should change out the hard drive.

open source alternatives to Spinright are badblock, hddparm or smartmontool which i am sure are available on linux livecds