arggggg lost all!

[rusmi]

I lost all in my laptop due to put the mandrake 10.1 DVD and follow the auto install procedure. At the end 2 results: lost XP and mandrake don't work, got blank screen during boot. It was a great success, XP is still much better for newbie....

[techieMoe]

Could you be more specific? What's your question? Are you *sure* you actually "lost" XP or did you just lose the ability to boot to it? That can be fixed without having to wipe your drive and lose your data.

If you've already decided to wipe and reinstall XP, what is the purpose of posting this?

[rusmi]

Firsty under XP I use Partition magic to create a linox partition, then I boot with DVD inside and try to install linux in that partition. But unfortunately after all the installation it didn't boot (blank screen). Not having idea what to do I put back the XP cd inside and I reinstalled XP, but it didn't recognise more the drive so I had to format it. I tried again, same procedure, but same problem. My experience wasn't successful, pity cause the move version of mandrake really impressed me, maybe the full one isn't compatible with my HP NX9005, even if I red on the forum someone was able to make it work....

[techieMoe]

Firsty under XP I use Partition magic to create a linox partition, then I boot with DVD inside and try to install linux in that partition.

As far as I know, creating a new partition is not necessary with Mandrake. All you need to do is resize your XP partition (PartitionMagic can do this) and leave the free space unpartitioned. The Mandrake installer gives you the option to "leave all existing partitions and use existing free space", provided the free space is at least 4GB.

But unfortunately after all the installation it didn't boot (blank screen). Not having idea what to do I put back the XP cd inside and I reinstalled XP, but it didn't recognise more the drive so I had to format it.

This is because XP does not recognize any format other than FAT32 or NTFS. Linux uses a number of formats such as EXT2, EXT3, and ReiserFS, none of which are recognizable as valid partitions by Microsoft Windows.

I tried again, same procedure, but same problem. My experience wasn't successful, pity cause the move version of mandrake really impressed me, maybe the full one isn't compatible with my HP NX9005, even if I red on the forum someone was able to make it work....

I'd take a look at the Mandrake section of the forum a little harder. Surely someone has had your problem. Also, if you decide to try again, don't give up and reinstall until you've posted and perhaps we can fix your problem.

[Scourge]

I had Partition Magic XP / Linux problem too.

Got Slackware installed and XP stopped working becouse of Partition Magick :P

Then wipe whole first disk, new XP -> errors in installing.
Threw XP cd in to the wall and installed only Linux.

Mutch happier and balanced these days

I think it's best to you if you just make empty space AFTER the windows partition and install Mandrake there.

Or add small hd just for the Linux.

[Stormblazer]

Adding a small HD isn't really an option on a laptop, usually.
Anyways, some future advice: Don't use partition magic for linux partitions, Linux is quite capable of creating it's own much better than partition magic can. What you do use partition magic for is when you already have XP, and you don't want to reinstall, so you resize the NTFS partition with partition magic and install Linux in the free space.
In other words, what everyone else said.