so i have finally gotten sick of microsoft and decided to venture into the realms of linux.
i got a mandrake distro with a magazine and tried to do a clean install on one of my old computers.
so i formatted and got rid of windows using the mandrake installer.
then it started doing it's thing and installing but it kept coming up saying stuff like... "blah.blah failed to install continue anyway?".
i continued and it got pretty far... up to the bit where you put in the bootloader.
then it just kept saying "bootloader failed" or something and wouldn't let me proceed.
i guess the kernel was screwed or something.
but now i can't do anything. i tried to format the drive again using the xp installer and it said that it can't do it... and when i boot up the mandrake installer it starts and then says it's sorry and can't continue.
do i need to make a boot disk so i can format?
i kinda know whats going on but am not a genius.
any help would be appreciated... the computer is not great but should run it fine.
thanks!

Well shoot, did you properly partician and format your harddrive correctly? What type of set-up do you have?

The reason Windows XP does not see your hardrive partician is because it is formated for Linux. I am only guessing that you did an automatic allocation for particianing when you formated.

d-1