Hi all,
For my first post, and before I ask my question, I would like to thank all the contributors here. I have found a boatload of info, and for a complete n00b, the support of a community such as this is just the push I needed to jump into the Linux waters.
The good news is that I'm writing this post on Mandriva Spring - One live CD. The bad news is I'm over my head when it comes to actually installing it. I have two 80 GB hard drives. XP, and everything else that I know of is on drive C. I don't know if there is anything on drive D. I have never used it. When I started to install from the live CD, I got to the part in the wizard where it asks how you want to partition the hard drive. The wizard did not seem to recognize the empty drive D, and gave me three options for installing Mandriva on drive C.
After reading some of the similar threads, I am wondering if there is a master/slave relationship between the two drives that I need to edit before installing?

I am really enjoying the 3D desktop and the ease with which Mandriva seems to work. I didn't expect any difficulty using it, but I am not surprised I am having trouble installing an operating system.

One other thing. You all seem to be so knowledgeable. Please have mercy on a middle-aged mom with ADD ! I am in over my head.
Thanks in advance for any help. I do appreciate it.

It's time to learn some command line operations. Open a terminal window (there should be an icon that looks like a computer monitor in the tray) by clicking on it. That gets you to the command line. Then run this command:
fdisk -l

If both hard drives are detected by Mandriva, you should see output showing two hard drives:/dev/hda and /dev/hdb (or possibly /dev/sda and /dev/sdb).

If you don't see two drives listed, you will probably have to check the connections (open the case and make certain the cable is firmly plugged in), and also check the BIOS (you should see instructions on screen when you first turn power on tell how to access the BIOS). You would be checking the BIOS to see that both drives are detected by BIOS software.

Thanks so much bigrigdriver. The BIOS does detect the second hard drive, and naturally, I just popped out the Mandriva CD and logged back into Windows.
I will do as you suggested and check from within Mandriva using the command line.
Strattera is wearing off, so I will have to do it tomorrow when I am focused again. Again, I am grateful for the help and the prompt response.

I would ask some questions about the second hard drive D.

Is this a drive you have had on your computer or that you just added to try Linux? Are the jumpers set correctly?

If you go to My Computer in Windows does it show both the C and D drives? Do the sizes reflect what is correct for the 2 hard drives. Is the D drive formatted and are there files on it?

Chances are if the D drive does not contain anything you need to keep you may just have to use and "advanced partitioning" choice on the D drive.

Second you should know Linux will show one hard drive as /dev/hda and the other as possibly /dev/hdb. If there are multiple partitions on a hard drive they would be /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, etc. Newer versions of Linux may show sda instead of hda.

Hi 2damncommon, and thank you for your reply.
My Clevo laptop came with two hard drives. I do not know what jumpers are or how to set them. Now that I have had a more careful look, thanks to your questions, it appears that disk D is formatted in NTFS and has 74.4 GB free space, with a total size of 74.5. How that squares with the 80 GB I'm supposed to have, I don't know. On it are the following: An empty folder named "bin", what appears to be a windows installation folder c0d8c9e78ee......etc. inside which is what appears to be the installation log text, a hidden folder called MSOCache, a hidden RECYCLER folder (don't know why it's there instead of C) and a hidden System Volume Information folder to which access is denied. I've never poked around in there before, so this was a good exercise for me.

Thank you for explaining how Linux shows hard drives. That will help me when I try this again.

Am I correct in guessing that drive D will need to be reformatted to allow for Mandriva?
Thank you very much for your help.

Software counts 1GB as 1024MB. Hard drives count 1GB as 1000MB. The larger the drive the bigger the discrepancy in the claimed and actual size. This is common.
My guess would be that the D drive does contain only a few default folders. I know Windows likes to stick a Recycle folder in other drives but I do not usually see a bin folder. Again my guess based on your description of 74.4 free of 74.5 seems to say nothing is really on this drive. You may wish to confirm this before formatting the drive.

Once you have decided there really is nothing on the second drive just choose the "advanced" option when you get to the partitioning part of the install. You will want to manually delete the existing NTFS partition and create 2 new partitions. One for Linux swap and one for Linux root (/; everything else). The swap partition should be equal to or greater than you RAM as you decide. Choose EXT3 to format the Linux partition and you should be on your way.

Do make sure you are changing the correct drive before partitioning and confirming.

Good Luck.

Thanks, 2damncommon. I've followed your directions thus far and have the disk deleted and am in the middle of formatting. I confess to still be in over my head.
The wizard displays the following:
Mount point: /
Device: sdb1
Type: Journalised FS: ext3 (0x83)
Start: sector 63
Size: 3.8GB (5%), 8177022 sectors
Cylinder 0 to 508
Not formatted

What do I do now? I apologize if this seems like a stupid question.
Thank you for all your help.

Is that information that is shown when you begin the install and have chosen your mount point and filesystem type? If so you should be able to proceed with the install.

Hi 2damncommon, and thank you for your response.

I didn't really choose anything except the file system type, as you recommended.
I have not formatted the disk yet. Are there better choices I can make in the setting above?
I don't know what any of that stuff means. Why is there a forward slash by "mount point"? Is 3.8GB enough space for what it is trying to do?
How can I change it if not? CONFUSED...but not giving up.

Thanks so much for your help.

I did not see the 3.8GB size.
I am assuming you are partitioning and formatting from the Mandriva install.
Before anything else. Is the total size of the sdb disk about 80GB.
Then make sure all partitions on hdb are deleted.
First create a swap partition, make it twice the size of the RAM on your computer.
Second create a partition for the Linux operating system. You can use the rest of the disk or leave some space but make it at least 10GB. This is for your root filesystem which is also written as "/". Do choose ext3 as your filesystem.
Make sure the partition sizes are what you expect them to be and if they are not backtrack or restart and try again until they are. When the partitions are the sizes you expect continue with the installation.

I would recommend using Windows XP's Disk Manager to delete all logical volumes and partitions on drive D:, so that Windows will show it all as "unused" or "empty".

Then, when you install Mandriva, it will offer as an option to "Use free space". Select this option and let the installer partition and format the drive automatically.

Jim

For a nice step by step guide to installing Mandriva 2007
complete with screen shots
http://www.howtoforge.com/the_perfec...07_spring_free

unfortunately doesn't cover dual booting
but when it comes to partitioning
select "custom disk partitioning"

regards
floppy

Thank all of you for your great advice.
I think my CD may have been corrupted.
So I waited for 2008 to come out and bought the powerpack.
Installed like a dream and works beautifully.
Still haven't managed to get my all-in-one printer working, and I recently screwed up big-time in 3d settings (desktop panels disappeared!), but I am learning and I'm really excited about gaining mastery over this OS.
I'm so grateful for this forum to help me figure it all out!
Look for a new thread on the desktop screw up!

Did you get your CD off a magazine cover or did you burn it yourself.

I have had continual problems with some magazines supplying faulty disks, it can be very frustrating.


floppy

Hey Floppy,
I burned it myself, but I had to wonder if my download just didn't quite end correctly. Satellite is the best I can do for broadband where I live, and it is great when it works, but it can be spotty. I had to retry the download several times.
The good news is, that I got my link for powerpack on a SUNNY day, (!) and was able to download it all without interruption. (Still took about ten hours, though). It was sooooo worth it.

After reading through all the entries in the forums that seemed to apply to what I wanted to do, i.e. dual boot, I am so grateful for 2008. It seems that several issues others have had were addressed in this edition, and that along with having non-free drivers available, made it possible for a n00b like me to be able to make the switch.

Grub works like a charm, I figured out my desktop goof-up mentioned above, everything I have tried so far works easily and the interface is easy to navigate. I love it.

I reading the sticky at the top of the Mandriva forum trying to figure out why some plugins won't work in Firefox, and I haven't been able to get my all-in-one printer to work yet, but there is plenty of info available (thanks to this forum) to help me get it.
Kind regards to all of you.