Okay, here I go.

When booting off the first Mandriva disc the entire process hangs at "Step 1 Disconnecting Life Support" if I boot from disc 2 and then put in disc 1 when prompted I can make my way all the way up to the partition program which splits my small drive(2 gb) in twain between a swap file and effectively makes installing anything in the next step impossible. Also, Spinrite reports that the second partition created is defined incorrectly. I'm currently running spinrite on the entire drive and then I'm going to attempt to install well running the graphical interface, as it seems as if it has better accessibility.

I realize I need a new drive, I realize I need a new computer, I realize I need a job, and all those suggestions are appreciated. Though I'm asking about my specific problem with the install.

since you don't mention hardware here is the min req'd
http://frontal1.mandriva.com/en/indi...erylx/hardware

2) if it is just hardware, linux offers lots of distros that can handle old hardware.....but if it is hardware min specs going graphical in Mdk will be worse as its more resource hungry......

you could first try out a live cd such as knoppix or I prefer kanotix to see if they detect anything strange
but hard drive installs are best left to a small distro I prefer puppy
you can read about them on www.distrowatch.org

yep I am not asking you to buy them just download a distro more suited to your hardware.

forgive me if you meet the specs ....please post them if you do and someone more wiser can take over?

hmm, I was under the impression i could put Mandriva on it and then set it up with something like KFCE(I forgot the name) so it would run better. I'm am guessing that impression was totally wrong.