danleff

PartitionMagic is a program that is sold to partition hard drives. This is especially useful if you had only one hard drive. Since you have 2 physical dives, the Linux distro apparently used your Windows drive (I bet it is the master drive on the system) for it's bootloader. But, now that bootloader is gone. If you do not want to pay cash for PartitionMagic, go to the web site for the hard drive and download their setup/partitioning utility. This is the easiest solution. Install it in windows and use it to re-format the second drive.If you can't find the utility, let us know and we can point you to it. Of course, if you made a floppy boot disk during the RedHat install, you could use this to get back the RedHat system and dual boot again. Assuming of course, that Windows is installed on the same partition it was originally on. DapperDan has a lot of experience with RedHat and can tell you if you can rescue RedHat with their installation cd.

Most often these failures are due to hardware problems. Any reason why you are trying Mandrake 9.2 rather than Mandrake 10? Remember Mandrake 9.2 may have been released before support for some of your hardware was added. One issue can be the raid. Is it enabled (do you have a raid array)? Give us some more information on the system, rather than "a lot of stuff." Video card? Status of the raid in your system? Onboard raid, via a controller card...? Promise or Highpoint raid? Also, installs can fail due to bad iso burns. If you burned your own iso's, did you burn them at a faster speed than 4X or 8X? ISO files like to burned at a slow speed.

You can install Knoppix on the hard drive. How you do this depends on what version of Knoppix that you have. The newer versions have a slightly different method that the older versions. But, you can install it right from the live cd. Most distros are available as a free download. See Distrowatch to get some ideas. What you want to do is make sure that your hardware is supported in whatever distro that you choose. For example, Knoppix is based on Debian. If all your hardware works with Knoppix, it would be a fine choice. It all depend on what you are looking for in the distro install (what tasks that you want to accomplish). What version of Knoppix do you have?

When you re-installed Windows, it should have overwritten the MBR, in effect you overwrite the Linux bootloader, replacing it with the Window's bootloader. Can you boot into Windows? To get rid of the Linux install, there are a few options. What Linux distro did you have on the system? You can use PartitionMagic to erase the Linux partition, or if you have access to a Mandrake install disk, you can also use this to erase the Linux partition.

Good, But I wonder why Mandrake did not set up the XP drive. It may be corrupted. But, at a console, get root by typing; su (hit the enter key and then enter your root password) Then make a directory for the windows partition to mount to; mkdir /mnt/win (make sure there is a space between mkdir and /mnt/win). Then type in; mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/win Again, assuring a space between mount and -t, -t and ntfs, ntfs and /dev/hda1, and finally between /dev/hda1 and /mnt/win. This mounts the windows partition, in your case hda1 on /mnt/win. Go to the file manager (such as clicking on the home icon on the desktop), navigate to the /mnt/win directory and see if you see your windows files. Be aware, the file manager will default to the home drive, so you may have to click the up arrow (on the top left of the file manager) until you back up the main filesystem, then click on the mnt icon, then the win icon within the file manager directory tree. Let us know if you get any errors mounting the win directory at the console, or when navigating to it in the file manager. If this works, we can add the partition to /etc/fstab later on, so it is auto-mounted at boot.

OK. One of the first things to do before installing any Linux distro is to defrag the Windows partition. Since Windows was pre-installed, we will assume that Windows is on the fist partition on the drive, or hda1 in Linux. If you go to a console and type df and hit the enter key, you should see all the partitions that are mounted. For example, mine says the following for hda1; /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 30065612 6273372 23792240 21% /mnt/win_c This means that on disk 1 (/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0) partition 1 (part1) is mounted on /mnt/win_c. If this does not show, then, probably the partition is corrupted. Mandrake also has a GUI view of the drive partitions. Go to start-->configure-->configure computer. Put in your root password. This brings up the Mandrake Control Center. Then click on Mount Points-->Partitions. You will see a graphical layout of the partitons that you have. The first partition should be layed out blue. Click on this once and see what the Details section tells you. Post back the results of what you find, especially if you get an error, or the partition structure shows more than your Windows partition and the Mandrake Partitions (probably 1-3 in in red and one in green for the swap partition). If you get a bunch of very small partitions that do not seem to make sense and interspaced with what seems to be empty, small partitions, let us know.

If you did not do anything to the Windows partition during the Mandrake install, it is still possible to boot Windows or get you files from Windows. What version of Windows is on the system? If it was XP, was it pre-installed on the system, or did you do the install? And, was it the first/only OS installed on the system)? When you installed Mandrake, did you tell the Mandrake partitioning utility to take space from the XP partition, or did it take free space on the hard drive? Once we know the answers to these questions, we can help you access the Windows partition and possibly get Windows to boot again. Let's go one step at a time.

Two key words in this thread; sata and software raid. Apparently Linux is still not playing nice on sata drives and a raid SOFTWARE install though Windows is somehow different than the Linux approach. I do not have raid on my system, but was able to use the 1st raid connector on my system as a plain ide drive (without raid). Trouble is, Mandrake reversed the drive designations, so that hda was hde..., so I had to add an append to lilo ide=reverse to switch the drive designations to get a valid boot.

I had this happen to me, using the Mandrake disk partition utility. Mandrake causes some funky things to happen to the partitions on the drive, especially when installed next to XP with a NTFS partition, or on multi-partitioned drive(s). Mandrake mis-assigned my Windows option to hda3, rather than hda1 in lilo. when I changed this, Windows was back! Your Windows install may still be there. What partition is Windows installed on and what bootloader are you using, Grub or Lilo?

I only see one file w3demo.exe here. What are you trying to download?

You can make a desktop icon, or add it to the menu. For a desktop icon, right click on any empty part of the desktop -->create new -->file -->link to application. Entitle it K3b on the first window. Click on Application and type into the command option [k3b[/b]. Choose advanced options. Check ¨run as different user¨. When the text box opens, next to username, type in root Click OK, then OK. When using K3b, just click on the icon and when prompted, enter your root password.

The article here may help a bit, if you have not already seen it.

That's what I get for copying text from another post! I tried the Mandrake K3b 11.9 rpm version off the K3b site. It seemed to install, but resulted in a hard freeze at the K3b splash screen..that was it. I'll have to look at the changelog to see if the issue with cue burning was resolved in 11.9, but this does me no good, since I had to revert back to the stock Mandrake version, for K3b it to work. I have not tried cue files yet.

Have you tried in k3b 0.11.9 select "Tools" -> "CD" -> "Burn CD Image..."? Also, check to see if cdrdao is installed and recognized by K3b.

I did a quick search and it looks like this card is not supported in Suse. However, the US Robotics support page recommends using the Linuxant drivers that are located Here. If you are comfortable with compiling the driver, then you may want to try this method. The US Robotics link is here.

In Mandrake, yes, both are given as options during the install. You can also elect to install Grub or Lilo to a floppy to test the system, then within Mandrake, invoke Lilo or Grub to the MBR.

This is a compatability problem with USB 2.0 and Linux. Interesting that the campatability database states that it works, but no specifics are given; http://www.linuxcompatible.org/cdetail10810.html

Your very welcome. Now that you have a system up, get comfortable with Linux and poke around google to see if you can find anyone else with your issues on this board...and possibly a solution. Try a google search like linux (the name of your board) and go from there. This way, you can test with the older system and see what develops...because...

Thanks, DapperDan. One would think that my system should be compatible, since they are the same type, brand and rating. No problem in Windows. The issue sure seems to be a driver issue and support for WEP. I'll let you know how it goes.

What version of Wine are you using, the one that came with your distro pre-installed? Which distro are you using? You can't use the XP filesystem (change the install directory)to the XP filesystem), if it is NTFS. Wine generally has a "hidden" directory system, usually on you home directory, labeled /home/(name of the user directory)/.wine. You can see it by getting into the Konqueror file manager and choosing on the menu: View/hidden files. If Wine is set up correctly, it creates a "fake" windows file scheme in your home directory, such as .wine/.../Program Files/... If this fake windows directory is setup in your system, you should be able to see it.

You will get a lot of theories about the MBR, but I have my main system with the MBR on a NTFS partition with no problem. Some create a small fat32 filesystem (50 mb or so) as the first partition as the MBR, but this does not seem to be necessary. I have tried it both ways. Two suggestions. Mandrake 10 tends to format partitons in a way that PartitionMagic has difficulty reading the partitions that Mandrake makes during it's install, so I would do all the partitions in PartitionMagic, then point Mandrake to take over the ext3 or whatever Linux partition that you have set up. As Mandrake goes to the format partition phase, just pick "custom partitioning." Don't allow Mandrake to actually format the partition, just set the root partiton flag. Some also feel that having a second ext3 home partition for Mandrake is useful, in case something happens to the boot partition, you can still recover your home partition data. Secondly, I would put the swap partition on the same drive as Mandrake. This way, if you decide to remove or change the second drive later on, you have not lost your swap partition. This will prevent the need to alter the first hard drive to make a swap partiton and tell /etc/fstab about it. In other words, Mandrake will look for the swap partition where you put it. Remove or change this drive's scheme later on, you remove or change the partition designation for swap. Not really a problem if you have 512 mb or ram or more, but a consideration. Also remember that all those NTFS partitions may give you a headache later on if you need to access any data on those partitions later on with Linux. Finally, it is possible to use the Windows XP bootloader (boot.ini) to boot Linux, but this is better off left to one with experience in this area. Lilo or Grub should give you the option to boot Windows XP system, IF you install Windows before any flavor of Linux.

Well, Dan, the same here. Tried Knoppix 2004-5-10. Picked up the card, but did not give me an indication in ifconfig that the net was up. For me it was the ath-hal driver. Got as far as; #ifconfig ath0 up #iwlist ath0 scan (gave all the correct router settings) Checked all the settings for essid...; #iwconfig ath0 essid "Value" No WEP on the router. Open connection, not shared key. #ifconfig showed a connection, the lights were blinking as they should - no Konqueror connection to the web. I'm going to work on this some more.

Sounds like you burned a boot image, not the installation iso's. You need to get the iso files from a mirror, such as HERE Look for the Mandrake-Linux-10.0-Community-Download-cd1.iso and so forth. The size is just about 695 mb apiece. There are three installations cd's. DO NOT make a boot image in your burning software. Make sure that you choose the option to "burn image" as SoulNothing stated, at 4X or 8X, not the full capacity of your cdrw drive.

Is this a home network, from work, or school? Do you know if you need a static or dynamic IP? Wireless or wired? Through a router, or NIC card and router?

D-link wireless cards. D-Link router. Al are the "G" variant. I have a card in a desktop (my wife's) and one in the laptop. Of course these females won't let you put Linux on their systems...but it is Mother's Day! According to D-Link, they state that their "b" series are backwards compatible, but will slow the system down to the "b" standard. I'm going to try some stuff with Knoppix this evening in the desktop and laptop.