Ok...here's the specifics:
Compaq Armada 7400 Laptop (333 mhz)
256 MB Ram
6 gb Hard drive
No cd rom
Have to use a usb to ethernet adapter (Startech - linux driver shows up as rtl8150)
Laptop is going to be used just for Internet (maybe more down the line, ie: Linux exploration)

If I try and do a Mandrake 10.0 install, I select the ftp server, it detects my usb device, connects up to the ftp server, and starts the mandrake install.
HOWEVER: once I accept the license, it goes through a detection phase.
It comes up with a screen that it has "found "parport_pc", "imm", "ppa" interfaces." It then asks me if I have another one.
If I select No, then it goes to a screen that says
"An error occurred
An error occurred - no valid devices were found on which to create new filesystems. Please check your hardware for the cause of this problem"

If i boot with a Win 98 boot disk, I can get to the C drive with no problems, so it does indeed exist.

I can never get this past this point.

Hi, I had this same problem on a 7750MT and found out that I could only install
Mandrake 10 if I pressed F1 at the startup screen and entered 'alt1' as the boot
prameter. This boots with the 2.4 kernel and will 'see' your drives (the standard
install uses 2.6).
For some reason, the 2.6 kernel does not detect the drives on my laptop and I think
I've tried most of the kernel-parameters to try to boot. I have 2.4 running but I'm
trying to get the 2.6 kernel to boot so that I can see if that ohci USB driver will work
with my USB 2 PCMCIA card.
If anyone knows why 2.4 detects the disk and 2.6 doesn't, I'd be very interested.
BTW, the IDE controller seems to be located at the 'normal', 0x1f0,0x3f6,14.

Hi

Mandrake 10.0 using an Asus A7N8X motherboard with a SATA 80GB Hitachi HD worked fine in dual boot configuration with XP. Replaced the motherboard with a Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro 2 board and had same problem as above.

I tried Fedora Core 2 which works without any problems. Downloaded Mandrake 10.1 beta 2 - same problem.

Tried F1 linux nopic nolapic <enter>

No luck.

Sounds like the 2.6 kernel in the Mandrake standard install does not have a needed driver for your hardware. If you wish to continue with Mandrake 10, I suggest you install with the 2.4 kernel (alt1). The 2.6 kernel is still stabilising and a lot of distibutions just use the 2.4 anyway. If you really need some of the features of 2.6, I suggest you get the 2.6 Mandrake kernel source, compare the config files between your 2.4 install and the 2.6 source (you'll find it in the source directory called .config) and see what is possibly not compiled into the kernel. Just enable it and make yourself a custom kernel. Some drivers have been left out of 2.6, and you may need them. It will take a bit of diff'ing and comparing of the files but you should be able to do it. I found i needed to do a 'make', 'make modules', 'make modules_install', and then 'make install' (in that order).
Yes, I got my laptop up on 2.6 but it did not solve the problem I have with the USB 2.0 PCMCIA card, and introduced more, so I reverted back. 2.6 did seem to be a little faster on the box but I will wait till 2.6 settles down a bit more before trying to get things going on this oldie-but-goodie laptop.
Hope this was of some use. Regards, Steve

i had been trying to get mandrake on there and it didnt detect much of my hardware and now it is installed
thanks alot