danleff

Yes, the version of the card is important. This determines the proper chipset that is being used. Even the same versions sometimes have different chipsets. I looked at the ndiswrapper wiki page and yours is not listed. Based on the information you are providing, it does look like a Marvell chipset. When you did make for ndiswrapper, there were no errors and your kernel source is installed? It may be that the card is not supported. I also noticed that a newer version is up for ndiswrapper. Perhaps try that version, if you already have not. The link is here. There are also distro specific instructions on the ndiswrapper wiki page that may help. The link to the page is here.

If you need step-by-step instructions, I can post this later tonight. Essentually, you do ther following (this is from rote memory - I will check this later for accuracy); 1. Disconect the USB cable. 2. If you are on broadband, make sure that the modem is connected to cable. 3. Connect the CAT-5 cable from the ethernet card on the machine to an ampty ethernet port on the modem. 4. In Mandriva, go to start-->system-->configuration-->configure my computer. Pick Network connection/setup. 5. Follow the wizard. It should detect your ethernet card. Choose auto DHCP and follow the prompts. If you have dynamic DHCP from your provider, ignore DNS settings and such and just hit enter to toggle through the menu prompts. Tell Mandriva to connect on boot and complete the setup. 6. The network wizard should restart the network services and you can test the internet connection with Konqueror, or whatever browser that you are using. 7. If it does not work right away, re-boot and see if you get an internet connection. If you have DSL, it gets a little more complicated. Let us know if you have DSL and need to login to your provider. On newer systems, Mandriva may not detect your nForce card right off, but Mandriva is pretty good about this support. Let us know if it works. If not, let us know what motherboard or system that you have, and if possible, what ethernet card is in the system. if in doubt, consult your users manual.

Yep, I thought about apt-get, but I was not sure about if pc-janitor did an original network installation, or had the full disk set, or what his apt sources were. I did not know about the tab completion, so that's a tip for me! If pc-janitor is on a dual boot system and has PartitionMagic, it looks like it's time to enlarge his Linux partition...steal more space from Windows!

So, you are using the source ndiswrapper package? What Windows drivers are you using, the Windows 2000 or Windows XP ones...from your Netgear installation cd? What distro and version is this?

What distro and version are you using? Fedora Core 4, Mandriva 2005....? The easiest way is to run your internet connection through an ethernet card, if you have one on your system. There is a USB module for this modem, but it may be somewhat confusing for a newbie to set up properly. Look at "Related Links" below and you will see an explanation on the USB method. The link is here. But, the easiest way would be to disconnect USB, and run a CAT5 cable from the ethernet card to an open slot on the modem. Then, depending on what distro you are using, use the network wizard to configure the card for auto DHCP.

I have not messed with Debian in a while, but get the correct package to the home directory in your Debian installation, move to that directory in console mode as root user and type; dpkg -i <package name> There may be an issue with dependencies, depending how you removed the package. How did you remove the package? What command(s) did you use?

Try this as root user in a console; adduser <name-of-user> dip Where the username is your login name. So, mine would be; adduser danleff dip

Could you post the make and model of your laptop? Did you configure your ethernet and sound during the installation at the hardware configuration screen?

It might help to post the model number, so one can know what case that you have and how to open it. It's nice that you have an extra hard drive, but did your PC person install an OS on the drive? If the hard drive did go south, or just become disconnected, you realize that you won't be able to use the other drive to get your old data? What happens when you try to start the PC? Are you sure that you connected the system up properly?

Not to confuse this thread, if you have only the Dell recovery disks, then the whole system will be wiped and the recovery disks will automatically install Windows. Realize that the recovery disks not only wipe the system, but creates a hidden recovery partition on the beginning of the drive that Dell uses for a variety of reasons. If you are going to re-install and have a full version of XP on hand provided by Dell, Windows will find the key code and proceed. If you have a full version of XP not related to Dell, you will need to have the key code to install Windows. The key should be on the XP disk cover/sleeve. In any case, Windows should be the first OS installed, to prevent any problems with the Fedora installation and to assure that Fedora adds Windows to the dual boot list during it's installation. This is why I asked why you needed to re-install Windows. Is there a problem with the current Windows installation? If you elect to just install Linux, make sure that you defrag the Windows partition first. This will assure that any files that may reside at the end of the partition will be moved back, avoiding any loss of files when Fedora takes space from the XP partition to make a Linux partition for the Fedora installation. You can either have Fedora take free space for it's installation, or use a partitioning software to make a Linux partition ahead of time, then point Fedora to that created partition. If you choose to make a partition ahead of time, make sure that it is either a fat32 or Linux partition. Do you have any partitioning software to use for this purpose?

OK, let's go one by one. Quote: I guess it's a disk for windows only, I can explore the disk but when I click on any .exe files I get the message 'Couldn't display "/media/cdrom/Livebox.exe".' This is a disk for Windows only. The exe files are for Windows use only. Quote: I don't have a multi processor system, I have a pentium 4 2.8GHZ with Hyper Threading. The version of Fedora that you have is using the smp kernel, which is for multi-processor systems. Let's move on, but this should be OK for now. Quote: Our account is broadband. So, you do not need to sign into your account? It is always active? Quote: I don't know whether the isp connects using dynamic assignment or static. How can I find out? Most likely you have dynamic isp if this is a broadband account. This determines if the modem/system get's assigned an isp automatically (dynamic), or if you need to manually input the values assigned by your iso provider (static). Quote: What's an NIC card? I don't know. How can I find out? The computer is connected to the livebox via a type B to type A usb. There are also 2 ethernet ports on the livebox. Do you have any ethernet connections on the PC that you are trying to connect from? It would be helpful if you could post the make and model of PC that you are using. Or, if this is a self built system, the motherboard make and model Linux works best using a connection through an ethernet connection. If your system has an ethernet (NIC) card built-in, then you should be able to connect through this port to the USB modem. Just to be sure what you have, could you also post the model number of the USB modem? I just looked at the Livebox page. This is new to me, but I think I get the idea.

Quote: mnt -t vfat /dev/hdb1 /mnt/bootData I then copy the fedora.bin file to my windows box via: cp -v fedora.bin /mnt/bootData C:\fedora.bin="Fedora Core 4" Your fedora.bin file should be on hda1, not hdb1? The boot.ini file is looking for fedora.bin on the c: drive (hda1), not hdb1.

Originally posted by johnwoodrow: Quote: Hello, complete newbie here. I live in France and have been with Wanadoo for a good year now. Recently I have installed FC4 on my other computer (Kernel: 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp) and I can't get it to work on the internet. The Modem is a Sagem F@st 3202 which is connected via USB, it came with a setup disk that I can't get to work. The disk that came with the modem...does it come with Linux drivers, or is it a driver disk for Windows only? In terms of Fedora, you have the version for a multi-processor system. Is this what you have? Is your ISP a DSL account that requires you to login to the account, or is it broadband? Does the ISp connect using dynamic assignment of the ip address or static ip? In general, Linux likes to connect via NIC cards, not USB modems, which are still poorly supported. Is there a NIC card in the system?

Take care. Why do you need to re-install Windows? Are you installing Windows from a full version of the Windows cd, or from the Dell recovery cd set?

What version of SuSE are you trying to install? Do you get the freeze problem while installing, or when booting SuSE from Grub? if booting (not intalling), does the screen freeze or do you get a command prompt?

This could be for a number of reasons. First, where did you get the cdrom disks? Did you buy them, or burn them yourself? If you burned them yourself, did you; 1. What site did you download them from? Did you choose the correct iso images for your system type? 2. Did you check the md5sum of the iso images that you downloaded to verify if they are valid and intact iso images? 3. What speed did you burn the images at and did you burn just the iso to the disk (where you see only the iso file on the disk), or burn the image option (so that you have a series of files and directories on the disks)? Take a look at my article on burning Linux iso images located here. Also, does your system meet the hardware requirements for Mandrake? Please post some system specs. so we can see what you have. 1. System that you are using (make and model) or motherboard make and model. 2. Amount of ram in the system. 3. Hard drive(s)in the system. Did you format the drive/partition for Mandrake before you attempted the installation? 4. Processor type and speed. Do you have any other OS on the system? If so, what OS?

Originally posted by shonuff: Quote: hey if im just screwed and there's nothing i can do, can someone please at least tell me how i might be able to access my documents and such on my windows drive from within linux and vice versa. thanx. Be patient Grasshopper. As folks enter the forum, they will try to help. I will be on the road until late 9/21, so perhaps others can jump in. Reading over the bits of information that you have given on each post, I wonder if you still have Windows on the primary master drive? When you installed Ubuntu, you were able to dual boot and get into Windows XP? How did you "uninstall" Ubuntu? You had grub as your bootloader, but if you wiped the secondary drive partition that Ubuntu was on, you wiped the grub bootloader information to read your drives and boot. When you just wipe the drive that Linux was on that held the grub information, you effectively trash grub's ability to boot. The drive and boot reference files are effectively gone. Grub on the MBR doews not know what to do. I have an older version of Nero, but what boot image file did you use to burn the cd for dos? If the XP recovery console just rebooted and did not give you a choice of which installation of Windows (even if it was a single installation) then I wonder if the boot.ini file is still there at all for Windows. You have had so many installations (and failures) of Linux distros, I wonder if you trashed your Windows installation by mistake. When installing grub in any of the installations, you told grub to install to the Master Boot Record? And your sure that each installation was on the secondary drive, which would have been hdb not hda, if this drive is jumpered primary slave? You can't read Linux files (well not for a newbie without special windows software) or manipulate them from Windows. You can read your Windows files from Linux, but not write to the drive. Well at least not fully yet. Writing to NTFS is still being worked on and is not totally safe. You can recover your Windows data information in a number of ways. If the partition is intact. If you just want to have Windows, you can do a reinstallation on the second drive. It will write an MBR to boot each installation from a Windows bootloader menu. that way you can recover your files. That is, if your c: drive/partition is still there. Are you using any partitioning software at this time like PartitionMagic?

Can you give me a link to where you got the boot disk?

You don't extract the iso files or burn them as a data disk, you must burn them as an image disk. See my how-to here. Is this the mistake that you are making? What burning software are you using? The other issue is the burner's ability to read CDRW disks. A lot of laptops have issues with this. Try a cd-r disk and burn the inage at a slow speed, say 4X or 8X. These iso images need to be burned at s slow speed.

Quote: when i try from DOS the fdisk /mbr command it tells me "error: can't save original MBR. Operation unsuccessful." How did you try this, from a DOS boot disk, or did you try to install DOS? Is this a Dell or Gateway system?

OK, did you try the following; Code: 1.Restore Windows XP MBRTo start the computer and use the Recovery Console to replace the MBR1.Insert the Windows XP Professional Setup CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive. 2.Restart the computer. If prompted to press a key to start the computer from the CD-ROM, press the appropriate key.3.When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts. Press the R key to repair a Windows XP Professional installation. 4.If you are repairing a system that has more than one operating system installed, from the Recovery Console choose the Windows XP Professional installation that you need to repair. Note: If you press ENTER without typing a number, the Recovery Console quits and restarts the computer. The Recovery Console might also show valid installations of Windows NT 4.0. However, the results of attempting to access a Windows NT 4.0 installation can be unpredictable.5.When prompted, type the Administrator password. If you do not have the correct password, or if the security database for the installation of Windows XP Professional you are attempting to access is corrupted, Recovery Console does not allow access to the local disks and you cannot repair the MBR. 6.To replace the MBR, at the Recovery Console command prompt, type: fixmbr ...and you have a full version Windows XP cdrom?

The specs for the card are located here. Do a Google search on linux Visualize FX5 and you should get some hits.

Try the suggestions noted on this thread and see if it works.

You did the bios update before the installation of Mandriva? Were you having problems that led you to update the bios? Once you updated the bios, did you set the default settings, or otherwise? Try this. Go into the bios and disable PNP OS. Usually it is set in the PCI/PNP Configuration Menu. Save the changes and see what happens. How did you format the drive for the Mandriva installation? Did you defrag the Windows partition before installing Mandriva? If you installed on the same drive, this is a good idea, as often files get stuck at the end of the Windows partition and this can complicate things. I assume the sata drive is the only one in the system. So, you installed lilo into the MBR, or boot partiton of Mandriva?

Well, the issue is that the original post stated that the user extracted the iso files, then burned them to a disk. This does not burn the iso files to the disk, which is the correct method of burning iso images. Also, the original post was from March, so I assume the user has moved on, or he/she burned the disks correctly and moved on. You are correct. The older version of Mandrake sometimes required you to insert disk 2 first. This was a glitch in the iso disks and is no longer an issue.