I installed mandrake and selected First sector of drive (MBR) as the place for the bootloader. However, my computer still doesn't boot from it and doesn't detect anything bootable. I can boot from the CD (obviously) I'm at a loss of what to do now. I tried a rescue and redoing the boot thing but still no luck, please help asap

Please help soon, I spent around 4 hours yesterdays downloading the isos. This is a fresh computer with nothing on it yet and I still cannot boot from the hard drive after installing. I'm so confused.

How did you partition your drive? Did you auto allocate or did you use your custom disk partitioning?

What processor are you using?

d-1

I let it pick everything for partitioning

My processer is an AMD Athlon XP 2700

when you say you can't boot, what do you mean? do you get any screens? any errors/messages? if so, post them & please describe the situation a bit more to help with troubleshooting. not being able to boot could be dozens of things. we need to narrow it down.

otis

well while I'm pretty sure the floppy drive works, it's not reading boot disks


But as for the rest.

Even though I installed Mandrake and let it go to the First sector of drive (MBR), when the bios finishes detecting IDE divices, it goes to the boot screen of the bios, then it tells me one of two things

If I have a CD in there, it boots from it, if I don't it says something like failure no boot media found or something.

It also still refers to some nvidia boot loader thing and mentions intel, which I find strange since I have an AMD processor.

you said earlier that this is a fresh computer with nothing on it. did you build this? or, did somebody else build it for you, with no preinstalled OS? if so, do you have the BIOS set up correctly? it almost sounds to me like the BIOS isn't set to boot from the hardrive. go to your BIOS & look for the boot order settings. make sure it's set to boot from the hardrive & not CDROM.

also, not to offend, but could you be a bit more explicit with the "some nvidia boot loader thing and mentions intel" message your getting. i have no idea what that means. could you please post the whole error if changing the boot order in the BIOS doesn't fix things?

otis

I've tried everything in the bios I've even tried making only the HD a posibility for boot and it still fails to boot. I built the computer myself BTW.

My mobo is Soltek SL-75FRN2-L nVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 if it matters.

Here's what it says


Nvidia boot agent, PXE 2.0(Built 082 v1.82)
Copyright (C) 2001 Nvidia corporation
Copyright (c) 1997-200 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure Check Cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Nvidia Boot Agent
DISKBOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER


Now what confuses me is the following, why is intel mentioned, I have an AMD chipset and an AMD processor.

What does it mean by Media Test Failure Check Cable

I would assume it meant the IDE cable, but it detects the HDD fine on loading the bios at the beginning and Mandrake installed ok, so that doesn't make since to me.

I'm at a loss for what this means and what I should do to rectify.

could you post the contents of lilo.conf? use the boot disk, hit f1 to get to log in, login, then type......

........& post it here.

otis

can't use a bootdisk, is there any way to get there from the CD

(not reading floppies for some reason)

ok, since you said you built the computer & this is the first OS you're installing on it, i'm gonna say open the case & make sure everything is connected, connected correctly, & seated & plugged in. from what it sounds like to me & what i'm reading, you have some hardware that isn't plugged in correctly. see the following Google Search. and, This Link in particular. even though that link is for an HP site, it's the same error you're getting.

otis

Well all I have is the onboard lan, and I disabled that, but I still can't boot from a hdd, however I think I can boot from a floppy, but I don't have a linux boot floppy.

i can't really offer anymore help, sorry. form everything you're describing & from what i've read, it seems to me that it's hardware related, which i really can't help with short of having access to the box itself.

if you want to test this theory, and as much as i hate to suggest this, but wipe the drive clean with either a Windows boot disc or the Mandrake boot disk partitioning tool. run fdisk /mbr to clean the boot record. then, (here comes the horrible part) try installing Windows. (that hurt to say that.) if Windows installs & boots, then i'm wrong & it's not hardware. if it doesn't install &/or boot, then you can be 100% sure that something is wrong inside the case.

maybe somebody else will have a better idea, but that's all i can suggest at the moment.

otis