Newborn- old system - Installation error

[rondude]

I've an old Dell OptiPlex150 bios A09- Pent 3 - 933mhz - 80gig hd - CD- floppy .... trying to install mandrake 10.1
No past linux experience.
When CD is in and welcome screen comes up, the install option highlights but no response, same with install w/floppy ... receive assistance works which got me here.
My boot sequence is floppy - CD - HD ... It will not CD boot w/ Mandrake 10.1 in CD.
By exploring w/WinXP ... going to CDdrv and in the Mandrake disk /dosutils/autorun ... installs 7files to floppy. including cdrom.rdz and vmlinuz
NOW booting from floppy ... the screen offers install and w/options. Selecting install, there is some loading - then some boot verbose - then trying to access mandrakelinux CD rom Norcent RWJ 481S - followed by error ...
could not open compressed ramdisk file (/sysroot/tmp/image/install/stage2/mdkinst_stage2.bz2)
clicking OK terminates and kills.
I've been woiking on this for some days ... downloaded Mandrake10.1 three times.. notice some tearing at this moment. Please, any help would be appreciated... I think this really a test for me to ask for help -- hurray for Linux
Rondude[/b]

[retired1af]

Sounds to me as if the image is corrupted. Did you run a checksum against the download to ensure it was good?

[rondude]

Thanks for your reply...
No I didn't, but I have two different CD's
One downloaded from Utah and the other from Texas.
They both have the same problem.
Rondude

[Richard_The_Lionhearted]

Hmm........


Is you're bio's set to boot from the cd?

Also if it happens to still not work I can help you get a linux distro for 2.49 or 4.98 w/free shipping if you live in the US.

for 2.49.............

SuSE Linux 9.1 Personal
Xandros Desktop 3 OCE
WinLinux 2003 Free Version
Yoper Linux 2.1.0-4
ProMEPIS 2005.b04
Arch Linux 0.7
Linux Mandrake 7.0
MandrakeMove 10.0 Download Edition
LibraNet 2.8.1 (2 CD Set)

For 4.98......

Slackware Linux 10.1 Install (2 CD Set)
Buffalo Linux 1.6.0 (2 CD Set)
FreeBSD 5.3 (2 CD Set)
NetBSD 1.6.2 (2 CD Set)

[rondude]

I have a new disk and it works....
NOW
ANOTHER PROBLEM

In trying to have a dual partition and share the space on my HD w/windows XP
It repartitioned MY ENTIRE HD... loosing ALL MY FILES
Now when I boot up it says "No operating system"
I think I need to fix this before in continue and install Linux.

ANYONE know how to recover from this and get back to I was before?

There is an old saying about suffering
sometimes it is not to complain about cause it just might get worse.........

[CoffeeMonster]

Just fire up the mandrake installer again and when drake asks you do what it recommends it should work then, and make sure you install grub on the mbr.

To be honest the best distro for newbs is Fedora Core, because mdk in my opinion has some issues still with the installer in actual fact, I had a few issues myself so I bought the dvd, and it worked fine.