Hey... so at the urging of a friend, and which much enthusiasm, I attempted to install Mandrake on a Dell Windows box running Phoenix BIOS 4.0, which I thought could take it. On reboot, I got the intall wizard/procedure, but when I couldnt install on my Windows partition due to fragmentation, the option to exit setup didn't make itself available. After much effort and patience, I bit the bullet, held my breath and did a hard reboot. Now it hangs on the Dell boot screen. I tried to get into BIOS to change the boot sequence, but it hangs after detecting the mouse and keyboard and doent go into setup. The CD drive is not getting picked up and is getting no power.

So...how bad did I screw up, and does anybody have any great suggestions on how I get out of this (thankfully I backed everything up, for a change)?

Thanks!

somebody? anybody?

okay, how about suggestions for where I can go for help? Thanks!

i veryt muchdoubt this is as a direct result of Mandrake in anyway.

just for the record
Phoenix is the worst BIOS around

maybe just let the computer post for 20mins
(thats how long a bios hangs if all 4 IDE devices are failing to detect)

thanks. i'll remember the phoenix BIOS issue, believe me...

I did leave the computer for awhile mindlessly with a DOS disk in the a: drive, and when I came back it running DOS off the disk, but I couldn't cd to the c drive. I'm definitely in over my head here, so any "how to proceed" suggestions would be appreciated.

definitely have some sort of hardware fault in you BIOS/mainboard

but hang tight someone else may respond

try hit del/F1/tab whatever you have to press to get into your BIOS
and it may take a few Minutes.

your problem could be with
the
HDD setting it may be setto one of 4 settings
LBA, Auto, Normal, Large.
it is found on the far right of your HDD settings. after cyclinder heads and size.

When i tried to use a HDD made for award BIOS (default LBA) with my board which has AMI bios (default Normal) it couldn't boot.

and linux may have partitioned it as Normal where as you bios is set to LBA.
so makes it impossible for bios boot

change the setting in bios to AUTO may fix the problem no bootable device found..

so, perhaps I wasnt persistent/patient enough trying to get into my BIOS setup, yer saying? Hope thats all. I'll try again in the morning (12:30 AM up here in Vermont, USA...time for bed) and check those settings.

Appreciate the suggestions. I'll see what happens.

If this is a normal desktop box, and you have been inside the box for any purpose, such as doing the backups, then maybe you have disturbed something. Check and see that the cables to the hard drive and the CD are properly seated. Check to see that the motherboard end of the hard drive cable is properly seated.

If you have had the ribbon cables off the hard drive or CD, check to make sure that you have not plugged them back on upside down, so that pin 1 is at the wrong end.

You say the CD is not getting power, try removing the power and ribbon cables from the CD, change the jumper on the hard drive if you have to to change from Master to Single, and see if it will boot that way with just the hard drive. This is assuming that the hard drive and CD are on the same cable; they may not be.