LinuxQuestions.org - problem with boot loader

Ok lets put it out there basically i have never used linux before and i am trying to learn it because it seems different. I downloaded the .iso for mandrake 10.0. What i have is a dell inspiron 1500 notebook with a 30 gb hardrive that has windows xp pro on it. The i went out and bought a 40 gb external hardrive and i am trying to install mandrake on that one. i went through the installation and everything seemed fine. after install i reboot my computer and all i see is a l at the top left followed by a whole lot of 07070707070707070707 all over again. I don't know what is going on i am basically a newbie's newbie and am completely lost the only way i got windows to work again is to restore the windows boot loader. I intstalled the boot loader on /drv/hdc or something like that but then they have several of them that are hdc1, sra, sra1,sra5,sra6 and i choose the hdc one then i used lilo with graphical interface and it didn't work gave me the 7's then i tried lilo with text and did the same thing i just linux and i can't into the program to try to learn it. If you could please help me i would greatly apprieciate it. All i want is to be able to choose at boot whether to run linux or windows and i'm lost. Sorry for being so long.

thank -you