this is my first build- been using windows since i was five so u can guess my age (windows 95 first experience) well i decided to try linux looks and sounds like a cool learning experience and well im having problems both of my 3.2 gig hard drives western digital are blank & formated but when i insert the cd roms of mandrake 10.1 official nothing happens even without the cd that message appears but the cd works opens on other comp. so i decided to take one hard drive out put it in another comp and install that way then put it back well it installed but when i put the hard drive back sme message operating system not found are the drives corrupt? couldnt find any one with the same problem also when put the drive in comp number 2 which intalled it with it boots linux but comes up with this kernal error ANY IDEAS NEED HELP VERY DEPRESSED.......THNX

hello and welcome to LQ! (and linux!)

well, one thing that might work would be to try booting off the second CD.

titanium_geek

didnt work........this becoming annoying

any help is accepted do i will do
anything that is necessary

instead of swapping the harddrive, swap the CD drive- perhaps this is your problem.

OR, it could be that you haven't changed the boot order in the BIOS- for me to change the bios settings I had to press "delete" during the boot process... read the screen- it will tell you what to do usually.

titanium_geek

What are the system specs?

Have you tried using a boot floppy?

i got a nickel that says this is the problem.

i have changed the boot order to cdrom first then floppy then hard drive but nothing happens. and now a new problem i insert the cd with my other blank hdd installed and it freezes up at the system load screen where it asks u if u want to enter bios press F1 specs are 866mhz processor 256mb ram 6.4gig hdds ( 2x 3.2 gig hdd) does this help?

looks like i owe you a nickel then.

its alright i thought that would fix it

a major break through it maded past the boot screen with settings as followed cdrom floppy and then hard drive boot order and now goes to a blank screen after words with no message clled good old operating system not found im not being funny this is good for me

my mom push the tab key during the boot screen and linux mandrake booted i did the same once before and nothing happened now im gonna erase the other hard drive and install again hopefully everything goes well will let u kno!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wait- so it has installed before?
have you heard of knoppix? it's a live CD, the biggest thing it's done for me is, upon booting knoppix 2, I proceed to type cfdisk /dev/hda or cfdisk /dev/hdb, and, using this tool, I am able to partition the drive to be friendly unto linux.
- seriously though, knoppix rocks. Check out LQ ISO for it... it should be on the most popular list
titanium_geek

thnx i have installed it on the second comp that had windows me on it but it didnt work when i put it back in the other comp which is the one im working on

Is it a compaq? I ask this because I have an 866mhz pentium III 256mb 40gb hard drive. One of the options at the boot screen is to press F9 to choose which drive I want to boot from.

Just a thought, if it is a compaq.