Help anyone...

I'm trying to install Mandrake 10.0 and I can't partition my hd. I tried twice and got the same results. The first time I told it to use the free space (not free space on Windows partition) and it seemed to get hung up on hda5 after which it failed. It was trying to use ext3 filesystem. I rebooted the system and tried again, this time using the customization route. I was able to specify the ReiserFS filesystem, the size of the partition, and the mount point (/boot for example). I started with the /boot. I set it up for 256 MB, /boot, ReiserFS and pressed "Format". Mandrake automatically assigned that partition to hda5 and seemed to get hung again. It showed a message saying "Please Wait...Formatting Partition hda5". Literally I got tired of waiting, seemed like 30 minutes and it still wasn't finished. I assumed something was wrong and flipped off the system. Interestingly, the first time I tried partitioning, it actually created four (I think) partitions before it hung up on, you guessed it, hda5. Except the first time hda5 was not assigned to /boot. However, I don't recall what it was assigned to.

It seems like Mandrake sees my hd ok during the autodetection and shows no signs of trouble until you try to partition. I went out to www.planetamd64.com and looked for drivers for my sata raid controller and found two, one for each Mandrake 9.1 and 9.2. I didn't install either of them because I wanted to do some research first. Does anyone think that could be a problem or do I have a more permanent incompatibility issue. One other note of interest, in the release_notes.txt file on the Mandrake CD there is an explanation about the system hanging during the autodetection process. It says that if this happens, reboot the system, and press F1 and type noauto and it would bypass the autodetection process. I wonder if that would allow the partitioning. Doesn't sound like it would but I'm only curious because it hangs similarly as during the autodetection process only much longer.

Does any of this sound familiar? I hope I've explained myself clearly.

AMD 64 3000+
MSI K8T Neo
Samsung 80G hd
Lite-On CD/DVD
Gainward TI-4200 64 MB graphics card
VIA VT-8237 SATA controller
Promise SATA/378 IDE controller

mind2work; taketime to look thru at htp://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/index.html (have gone thru all sections 1-7)
n expanded them info abounds more than i imagined possible. answers ur seeking may be there!

Penguin4,

Thanks for the tip. I went to that site and did get some very useful information. My problem, however, was related to a setting regarding multi-processor systems. I learned this from another thread. Upon booting, rather than press Enter to start the install, I pressed F1 and at the bottom of the screen I typed in "linux noapic nolapic" and then hit Enter. The install took right off and was flawless to the end. Thanks again for the help...kevin.

mind2work; u r welcome and thanks for ur tip can use it later.