ad-rs1600i 0 Posted August 16, 2005 Apologies for those regular members who are for ever answering the 'same old questions' from newbies but....! I'm a techcie by trade with Windows etc so know a bit, but fancied a go with Linux as I am bored silly with Windows after using various incarnation of it over the last 10 years. I picked Mandrake because it looked nice and friendly. So far Mandrake 10.2 Linux the flavour i'm using is very impressive, but I am struggling with little bits of it.... Problem 1. Firstly i'm using a dial up modem, and having found out Wanadoo isn't compatible want an alternative ISP which doesn't charge 1.5p per minute evening rate! Has anyone got a safe Linux ISP on 1p per minute like Wanadoo etc etc ISPs? Problem 2. After installing Linux I decided to uninstall it and slap Windoze 2k back on just so I could see the performance of my new computer but (long story) was planning on switching back once i've brought a DVD drive to install Mandrake 10.1, i curently have the 3 CD edition which can be a pain disk swapping (reminds me of my floppy disk swapping days with the Amiga!!!). Anyway, I go to delete the disk and set the partitions up again in Windows 2k setup and it says the partition table already contains an OS and that it is going to mod it to allow Windows to boot. I say ok, it goes through copying data etc. on reboot the machine comes up with 'invalid partition table' or something along those lines. I've tried 'Fdisk /MBR' but this doesn't work, i've also tried this command using the Win2k console program 'fixmbr'. The only way it'll work again as a HD no matter what I seem to do is to reinstall Linux again?! I think it has hacked the MBR, but I don't know how to put it back to factory default? Any ides? Problem 3. I have Quake Point release for Linux, a x86.mun file but this won't execute under Mandrake 10.1? Any ideas? Many many thanks in advanced, because I'm lost Share this post Link to post
danleff 0 Posted August 16, 2005 Look at your other post on this subject of the hard drive issue. So, is the hard drive formatted with a Windows compatible partition? When you wiped the hard drive (if that is what you did), did you format the drive again as fat32? Windows needs a valid fat32 or NTFS partition on the drive, the first partition on the hard drive, for it to do an installation. Share this post Link to post
mherring 0 Posted August 25, 2005 I have NEVER seen a situation where Windows would not install after any number of iterations of Linux installs. Just let it re-format the drive and it should go fine...Push comes to shove, use fdisk or something like partition magic to delete ALL the partitions--then install Windows. Once you have Windows running, I would recommend a completely separate drive for Linux. Any of the better distros will find the Windows installation and set up the boot-loader. Share this post Link to post
