ok well i finally got to the start of install and now i am having problems parttioning i had a look at the normall install ?
but mine must not be normal? i dont have the option of using existing partitions and i have about 20 gb of space its one hard drive with windows xp
on the other partition witch is 17.5 gb

what di i do ?can anyone help??


Thanx

also if i use free space on the windows partition it wont work!

it says :

partition failed the fat resizer is unable to handle your partition

the following error occured :
invaled signature for ms-based file system

.....proragated?????

How are you partitioning your hard drive? Is it via the Mandrake installation, or are you using some separate program?

i originally set up windows xp with 3 partitions, one 17.5 gig which is empty ; one 17.5 gig which has windows xp installed ; one 3gig. That's what i used to partition the 20 gigs and the 3 gig, i haven't formatted them yet 20 and 3 gig partitions

Okay, so you have 1 hard drive split into 3 partitions.

When you install Mandrake, select the CUSTOM PARTITIONING. This should give you a visual on how your hard drive looks like.

well thats the problem i dont know what to do from there????????

This link will give you a clue:
http://www.linuxloader.com/modules.p...&pid=18&page=5

when you see your partitions when doing "custom partitioning" during the install you will have a blue partition showing, that is your windows partition. Don't play with that one. One easy way to do this would be click on each partition shown (except the blue windows one) and delete each one then hit the "autoallocate" key and let Mandrake choose partitioning structure( does it out of the unpartitioned space).

Alternatively, resize your partitions and assign mount points to them with same tool. (Again stay away from windows partition). To do this, simply click on one of the non blue partitions, you will want at least three non windows partitions: (/ , swap, & /home)
Just a suggestion, I would resize the first partition to the right of windows to say 3 gigs and use mount point button to assign it as /, and the next partition I would resize to 500 to 700 megs and assign the mount point swap, then I would resize remaining or create partition to use all remaining space and assign it /home.

Remember if you fudge there is an undo button there. Changes are not committed till you hit the done button.

thank you all for your continuing support this will be my first post from linux !!!
agin thank you for all your time and efforts at least i know where to come for more help


cheers!!!