I have prepared a 10GB partition(ext3) at hdb11 with mandrivas diskdrake.

When trying to install to hd from the simplymepis 3.3.1 live cd.I get to the part in the installer where I choose a partition to install to and when the installer tries to format it reaches 3% and after awhile it says "failed to prepare chosen partitions.Returning to step 1".

When I view diskdruid from the live cd hdb11 is an unknown file system.Is this because of the failed attempt to format by mepis?

Thanks

Could be problems with the hard drive, or problems with the CD you burned. Did you compare the md5sum of your CD to that of the original on the server(s)?

I'd download a minimal bootable linux floppy/CD, boot from it, and use it to partition (fdisk) & format (fsck) the hard drive. Then you can just use your install CD to install to the already setup partitions. If you cannot partition/format with a separate linux boot disk, then it may be your hard drive. If you can successfully partition but have more probs installing, it's probably something wrong with your installation media.

I just reformatted hdb11 with mandrivas utility and installed slax linux on it.All went well so I wrote hdb12.The installer for mepis did the same thing.

I checked the md5sum.It was good.Maybe I,ll download and burn again tomorrow.I really like the live cd.I hope the new disk works for me.

Thanks

I have a problem of a slightly diff nature... I am trying to install SuSe 10.0 from a DVD i burnt from a downloaded iso... but i am unable to do a full install without 'package installation failures' etc... I want to compare the md5 of the iso with that of the DVD (image md5 tallies with the downloaded one). Can you tell me how i can do this?

Yes, read "Coasterless CD Burning" at http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/coasterless.htm

Should answer all your questions.

Hey, thanks a ton... very neat

simplymepis and vector linux both gave me some trouble when i installed them.

the only way around it for me was to start over. didnt take more than 3 tries [and about 20 mins] to finally get past the area that was hanging up.

If this helps, in my case, the LiveCD MEPIS was corrupted. HAd to reburn a new one; Apprently K3B has a builtin Md5 checker, I may be wrong?

You are right. K3b checks checksums for you. K3b is awesome for burning iso images.

I had the same problem, switched to ext2 and the install went great. Not sure if it was a bad burn or not, the problem seemed to be only with ext3 since I was also able to successfully install using ReiserFS.