I can't believe this: I just found out that you have to burn the core updates cd first, start installing with that, and then it hands the installation over to the DVD.

Najito, I've been trying to do the same thing as you, with one small diff: i'm using the x86-64 instead of the i586, but according to the official docs I just found, this is what we have to do b4 anything else.

I'm going to try it tomorrow morning, but I'm doubtful. And I'm displeased with Mandriva for making such an important piece of info so hidden. Sorry, but logical people would assume 'core updates' means that you install the body of the installation stuff first, and then update -- especially if you're coming from the windows world, and that's precisely the market Mandriva is trying to woo.

This also means that my burned dvd that I spent hours and hours trying to fix, and then replace, might have been just fine, and all I needed was the core updates 'cause of my hardware. I even got access to their ftp servers, but wasn't happy with the file sizes of the dvd iso's I found there -- or the results on my hard drive after the download was apparently finished (sometimes the dvd ended up smaller than advertised, ~1/2 the size of a normal cd).

I swear; these pps at mandriva need to get their act together; even their website works better in M$ IE than it does on a Mandriva-freecd installation.

I may very well end up with knoppmyth...I just ordered another big IDE drive and a 2nd tuner.

I did notice when I tried a Knoppix live DVD recently I was sitting in front of a black screen with nothing seemingly happening for a full 5 to 10 minutes . It just seemed unusual.

I waited though and eventually a screen came back .
Maybe it was setting up the ramdisk in ram and not writing to screen or hard disk during this time.

I've said it before get the DVD with Linux Magazine if you can , any live disk will do and as said before use it to check your hardware . When I changed my monitor to a flat screen lcd I had to give the computer more shared memory for the display from 8M to 12M . Maybe its a display memory problem

now im feeling that im at the right place, thanks to GlennsPref .

Ill try to download and run Mandriva one CD. After your advise because I don’t wanna risk with my old files in the hard disk.

About:
Now, You haven't told us much about what happends before you get to the prompt.

Can we start there, please?

Answer:
Ok, I started the PC with the Mandriva bootable DVD. The computer is booting from the DVD and after that the prompt screen appears to me saying
"Welcome to Mandriva .... .... if you wanna install press Enter , for advanced press F1 ... etc"

Will I pressed Enter and a progress bar starting in the prompt, after the progress bar finishes the black screen appears and that's the entire story.

Will I waited for approximately 15 minutes then I restarted the PC manually.
I have checked the DVD iso by the md5 before I burn it and its ok.

Do you advise me to wait more than 15 minutes??

Hi NoMoreReinstallMS ,
Finally I have seen some one like me having the same problem. Thanks god.
I think there is no difference between me and you, because I found in mandriva.com that they wrote "Linux 2006 ISO for x86-32 (i586)" at the installation page. Witch means
x86-32 == i586.

About the DVD Iso file size that I downloaded is = 2.03 Gbyte. Is it the same as you?
I recommend you to do the md5 check on the iso that you downloaded to see if it’s not corrupted download.

About the core cd. Is it the:
Mandriva-Linux-Free-2006-DVD.i586.idx
OR
Mandriva-Linux-Free-2006-DVD.i586.sha1.asc

Because that what I found with the DVD in the ftp server?????

Yes, we're very similar, and it's starting to actually install when I use the core updates cd *first* from a fresh install. The main diff between our iso's is that you have the .i586, and I the x86_64. Similar, but diff.

And no, my newest iso download is 4.7G, the way it should be.

Of course, I say "started to install"; I'm not home free yet.

I don't think you should have to wait more than 15 minutes, but I'm not sure. It seems like a long time. Have you tried going for a coffee with friends for a couple of hours? lol.

The only thing I can think of is the program is scanning your HD for free space and/or hardware profiling before it resumes the installation.

How big is the HD?

The live cd may give more insight, and it is more immediate, because for one thing it is not concerned with your harddrive, it will not write to it, so it doesn't matter.

That may be enough to show some info to enlighten us.

My sata drive is 120G and my two IDE (pata) are 40G and 20G, and I had to give it about 7 or 8 minutes.

That was with nothing on screen, no prompt, no progress bar. Just Black, but not sleep mode.

The check sum sounds good. So many ppl skip that and can't find the fault with the install program, not just mandriva, but RedHat and Fedora too.

I'm at a bit of a loss now.

Try the coffee break, You know what they say, "A watched pot never boils"

Sorry to jump in with my usual suggestion: try
noapic nolapic acpi=off video=vesa vga=ask
at the boot prompt (this may help with the dual core and acpi quirks)
I have no other suggestion for now, so keep going with
other contributors line of thought as well

To NoMoreReinstallMS ,

Could you tell me what is the name of the core cd?

To GlennsPref ,
I'm still downloading the live CD.
I'm gona to try the coffee break for a couple of hours
Because I have one hard disk type SATA with capacity of 200 GB.

Even if its gona be a silly thing to leave the computer with black screen and with no activity in CPU or Hard Disk, but ill try it. Thanks

Could you explain all of these words what is means??
My CPU is Intel Dual Core.

nolapic is a way to address the hardware, especially relevant to dual core I believe, noapic is for single core so thrown in for good figure
acpi is to do with suspend and energy savings etc
video=vesa make you use a simplified video mode

Take it as a recipe for now, just try
for more on the topic there are zillion of pages
http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/K...el?xpage=code&

PS:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/BootPrompt-HOWTO.html

The file you should get is named Mandriva-Linux-CoreUpdates-2006-CD.i586.iso, and of course it has a md5sum file and an idx file in the same directory. Do you have a password for their ftp servers? If not, just go to the download page of the Mandriva club and click the link that they give for people not able to use torrent file downloading.

They'll send you a password and access in 15-30 minutes, but do warn you that the servers don't give as "pristine" copies as those from the torrents. And they were right: I gave up on my other dvd, and so did my system builder, but the cd's downloaded fine. I'm now giving it one last shot to download it through another file-sharing program (azureus is great, but a memory pig; thank goodness I'm memory-rich). A full 24 hours after the start of the download, I'm still only at 47%.

Quite frankly, if this doesn't work we'll be installing a completely different distro on Sunday when my builder is coming with his family, disks, and more hardware.

Cheers!

Quite frankly you are too patient spend $12 or so and get a magazine with a free distro DVD and save the hassle

Firstly, I would certainly not bother and try downloading any distribution by modem! Never ever! Its just much too slow, and if anything unfortunate happens you can repeat everything again and again. In the end you would be online for days and have no results but a big phone bill. So why the trouble?

Secondly, Mandriva 2007 is scheduled to be public in a few days or so. Therefore, I would wait a little while and get a magazine with a DVD of the latest Mandriva 2007. Then you can install your box, your friends box, and so on.

If that seems too much trouble, there is always the Mandiva Club. There you can get all you want, plus support.

Helmut

Mandriva is scheduled to the 15th of September. But that date is not carved in stone and is not the public release date. The public release is usually 4-6 weeks after club release.
http://qa.mandriva.com/twiki/bin/vie...drivaLinux2007